
What Sets Us Apart: Filecoin’s Proof System - Confiks
https://filecoin.io/blog/filecoin-proof-system/
======
lalaland1125
Like so many cryptocurrency projects, Filecoin just seems like a solution in
search of a problem more than anything else. What exact problem is Filecoin
trying to solve that's not possible with current infrastructure? It seems like
the decentralization adds a lot of overhead and complexity for no benefit.

The main argument that I hear is that somehow Filecoin will be cheaper than
centralized competitors. However, services such as Backblaze are already quite
efficient. Why exactly would costs be cheaper and why can't Backblaze do those
same things and overtake Filecoin?

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imglorp
They needed to compensate providers of storage for IPFS. The challenge is how
to prove that a provider has your block and that they aren't double dipping,
ie claiming redundancy when they only are storing one copy.

~~~
momack2
Exactly. IPFS has millions of end users and hundreds of apps storing data on
the decentralized network, creating demand for decentralized _persistence_ of
that data. Current solution is to either run your own IPFS node or pay a
pinning service to run a node persisting your IPFS data for you - but even
better to have a highly resilient marketplace of storage nodes that can store
redundant copies!

~~~
darkcha0s
Where are you getting “millions of end users” from? A quick google search
doesn’t return anything, and that seems a lot for a relatively unknown project

~~~
NickBusey
IPFS is by no means 'relatively unknown'. It is used in dozens of projects.
See: [https://github.com/ipfs/awesome-ipfs](https://github.com/ipfs/awesome-
ipfs)

~~~
marknadal
I think parent was saying the projects using IPFS are relatively unknown, so
where are the millions come from?

I have the same question.

In contrast, GUN, has 20M+ downloads/month from known sources: Internet
Archive, HackerNoon, etc.
([https://github.com/amark/gun](https://github.com/amark/gun) see jsdelivr
download stats).

~~~
johnmarcus
Gun is currently a pile of shit. Anyone saying otherwise hasn't used it. The
sole founder and developer is a very nice person, but it's the reality of Gun
tech right now.

~~~
marknadal
Thanks for the comment.

Could you expand further what didn't work? We have some pretty heavy load in-
production systems running. Definitely some rough edges still, so I'd like to
hear what problems you had, so I can focus on fixing them in the future.

Thanks again.

~~~
johnmarcus
It was a month ago I checked it out and it just wasn't usable - i do not
remember the details but even basic things did not work. I had a json dataset
i just wanted in a local db, and that was proving challenging for simple
operations is what I remember, didn't even get into the p2p side yet. If I
remember correctly, it wasn't returning accurate results when queried.

try creating a youtube video of getting it to work from scratch, reading and
writing data and i think you will see the problems. Or maybe ask a friend that
is less familiar than yourself to try it, the problems seemed rather obvious
as it just didn't work for a basic use case.

~~~
marknadal
Thanks for the reply.

If you ever have time, it'd be great to snag whatever code or data you had, to
create a replicable test case for us to make a fix against. Sorry about the
wasted time you experienced, I hate that.

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aakilfernandes
Whats missing is proof of delivery, and thats the most important thing. I'm
not just paying AWS to store my files, I'm paying them to deliver my files.

 _Maybe_ this could work as an alternative to glacier. But even then, I doubt
it. I'd take Amazon with an SLA any day of the week.

~~~
ajhurliman
That's the other way you get paid in Filecoin, payment channels for retrieving
files. Although it's not technically "mining" it's easier to think about
Filecoin having two types of miners: Storage and retrieval. Since it's
incentivized there's a good chance you'll get your files back quickly if
you're willing to pay more or if it's a common file.

~~~
johnmarcus
As long as Filecoins is traded on a market, and not tied to actual
cpu/bandwidth/storage costs, then if will ALWAYS be more expensive then AWS
(and alternatives).

~~~
ajhurliman
If I go out and spend $20,000 on a a 480TB file server and I were charging AWS
prices ($0.023/GB), I could get $11,040/ month. After two months my investment
would have paid for itself. I'm not sure why you think markets are inefficient
and somehow AWS is superior, but folks could be getting paid 10x less than AWS
and still making money on their investments.

Inversely, people could be storing their files for 10x cheaper than on AWS.

~~~
johnmarcus
Because Filecoin being a tradable asset as well as a utility confuses how it's
valued. If it rises quickly, it's better to sell then spend. If it drops, it's
bad for those running servers. Both ups and downs are being driven by forces
which have nothing to do with cost of services, that's the problem. Unless
they fix the price of Filecoin against the USD to make it a real utility, it's
a get rich quick scheme.

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paulproteus
It seems that Filecoin fundamentally relies on a proof-of-work type system
called "sealing." The article calls it "an intense amount of work" that you
must do in order to host a file. Does anyone have any estimates or comparisons
for the CPU/energy consumed?

~~~
whyrusleeping
Its currently looking at about 4 hours of single core CPU time, plus 2-3 hours
more of using many cores for a 32GB sector.

The difference between sealing and an actual proof of work based network here
is that once you've sealed a sector, you don't have to keep computing anything
that expensive. If you seal 1TB and thats 1% of the network, you should win 1%
of the blocks (ignoring network growth) without further sealing work required.
I tend to think about it like a (calculus) derivative of PoW.

~~~
chrisco255
What's the purpose of sealing?

~~~
whyrusleeping
Sealing ensures that miners have a unique replica of a given piece of data on
their disk. Since we're basing block producer power on storage, we need to
protect against a number of attacks such as people generating the data on the
fly, or deduplicating data on disk (claiming to have 100TB but only having a
single 1TB file 100 times).

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ThrowAwayGlen
I'm very glad I didn't buy into the ICO hype. Filecoin raised $257m selling
their Filecoin tokens and now, more than 2 years later, they still have yet to
ship a product.

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johnmarcus
If the market trades Filecoins too high, won't it become a cost burden to
those wanting the service? And so then I will leave Filecoin, and there won't
much data to store. Until you fix price Filecoin, the technical market will be
sullied by the financial markets.

As an example, if my ec2 prices went up in line with Amazon stock, I would be
paying 5x the cost compared to z few years ago - which means I would have left
to digital ocean, and AWS would lack customers. Lagged hype would falsely
bolster the stock price.

It's why this decentralized bullshit doesn't work - in the end the greed of
it's founders/majority holders destroy it.

~~~
whyrusleeping
Its not like 1 filecoin == 1 gigabyte of storage. Its a market, people pay
what they want to pay. I think you have an incorrect picture of the system in
your head and havent actually gone and done the research needed to back up
your angry sounding claims.

~~~
johnmarcus
They pay in Filecoin, which is a fluctuating asset based on financial market
conditions which have nothing to do with actual cost of services. Do your
research, else your just anther naive investor, or worse, con man.
[https://tokeneconomy.co/the-analysis-filecoin-doesnt-want-
yo...](https://tokeneconomy.co/the-analysis-filecoin-doesnt-want-you-to-
read-e60d5243f17c)

~~~
capnwally14
Lol, whyrusleeping is one of the core contributors to Filecoin.

Also if the price externally is changing, you could just... reduce the amount
of FIL you pay per GB.

So if in t=0, the price of FIL is $1, and I choose to pay 1 FIL for 1 GB, and
in t=1 the price of FIL goes to $2, I could just pay 0.5 FIL. Sounds like a
miner (whose cost basis denominated in fiat) would be happy to accept either
deal if its net profitable.

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thulecitizen
Filecoin's Proof of Replication sounds similar to Valueflo.ws and Holochain's
asset backed currencies. Let's go full distributed computing and use mutual
credit while we're at it. Otherwise we're just going to carry forward the
broken dynamics and assumptions of the current economy.

~~~
chrisco255
What is "Mutual Credit"?

~~~
thulecitizen
Mutual credit means everybody can extend credit to another peer, and there is
no centralized issuance of credit. The agreements themselves are fully p2p
without any 3rd party. Using mutual credit (which the Holochain
pattern/framework is specifically designed to do) [1] also means the mutual
credit protocol/agreement itself can evolve without being bottlenecked by the
developments of said 3rd party.

"Check out, for example, mutual credit systems like Sardex, where small
businesses get together to issue money as credit to each other. Everyone
starts from zero in the system, and then goes into and out of short-term debt
to one another by either receiving goods and services — which creates a future
obligation owed — or by being prepared to offer goods and services to people
on the system, which earns you positive claims on others—otherwise known as
money." [2]

[1] [https://medium.com/holochain/holochain-reinventing-
applicati...](https://medium.com/holochain/holochain-reinventing-
applications-d2ac1e4f25ef)

[2] [https://howwegettonext.com/the-future-of-money-depends-on-
bu...](https://howwegettonext.com/the-future-of-money-depends-on-busting-the-
fairy-tales-you-believe-about-its-past-30cbd90619e0)

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thesausageking
I hadn't heard much from Filecoin since their ICO years ago. How does Filecoin
compare to Sia and Arweave?

