(1) What is IPFS?
The full name of IPFS is Inter Planetary File System, which is generally translated as "Inter Planetary File System". It was proposed by Protocol Lab and is a peer-to-peer (P2P) distributed file system.
However, although it is a file system, a technology used to store data, IPFS is more precisely a transmission protocol. IPFS regards HTTP as its opponent, and must be benchmarked against HTTP in publicity, and HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is currently the most commonly used transfer protocol.
If we want to find the content we want on the Internet, we need to enter the URL, which mostly starts with HTTP. HTTP transfers through domain names, IPs, and multiple central servers, and then uploads and downloads files. The merits of HTTP are irreplaceable, and now we all rely on HTTP to surf the Internet. But HTTP also has some problems, such as performance efficiency is not very high, and excessive reliance on the central server and backbone network, etc.
Compared with IPFS, it is a multi-centralized solution. Content addressing is not through domain name or IP, but through unique HASH key to search for data. IPFS is a distributed file storage system. File data is not stored in a centralized server, but in all eligible computers on the network.
Of course, IPFS is more than that, there are many other features, the level and the scope of application also exceed simple P2P downloads. There is an incentive mechanism in IPFS-Filecoin. Participants (miners) can obtain encrypted Filecoin rewards by contributing storage space and bandwidth. V czdn222
(2) What is the relationship between Filecoin and IPFS?
When it comes to Filecoin, I have to say IPFS. Both of these projects are maintained by Protocol Labs. Many people tend to confuse these two projects, but in fact they are two completely different products.
IPFS is not a blockchain project. It is a protocol for data distribution and positioning, similar to the current HTTP protocol. The difference is that IPFS data transmission is based on a peer-to-peer P2P network. The more nodes that participate in data transmission, the faster the transmission efficiency, which is similar to the seed download files we commonly use.
Data storage in the current IPFS network is entirely voluntary. Popular resources may be stored in multiple nodes, and some unaccessed data may be cleared by the system as a cache in the near future.
It can be found that Filecoin, a blockchain project with the token economy as the core, can just make up for the lack of data storage incentives of IPFS. IPFS-based applications have huge data storage and node requirements, but if there is no incentive mechanism, no one Will be willing to contribute their own resources free of charge, and Filecoin miners can contribute many nodes and resources to the IPFS network for their use under economic incentives. Therefore, we usually think that Filecoin exists as the incentive layer of IPFS, and they are complementary. relationship.
IPFS and Filecoin are independent of each other, because the two are not coupled in the technical system, which means that Filecoin can run independently from IPFS, and IPFS can also choose other incentives.
In fact, the mainnet of IPFS was launched in 2015, and it has been running well up to now. The combination of the two can produce a wonderful chemical reaction. The two sides provide each other with complements to build an imaginative world of data distribution and storage. V czdn222