Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Filecoin: Proof of Storage Systems

blog.coinlist.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 53 posts

Re: Filecoin: Proof of Storage Systems

#11

Post by olah_1 »

Sargos wrote: post #7
cgb223 wrote: post #5

How is Filecoin different from Sia coin? I remember a while ago hearing about both trying to decentralize storage but never kept up with it enough to really suss out the difference

Sia seems like a Dropbox/OneDrive replacement whereas Filecoin is an incentivized storage layer infrastructure for apps to use, especially dapps. If you wanted to build a decentralized SoundCloud you couldn't use Sia but IPFS/Filecoin is the primary building block of such a dapp.

Sia released a new version of their product called Skynet[1] which provides exactly the functionality of IPFS+Filecoin today. Part of Skynet is a group of SDKs[2] which you can use to integrate skynet storage as part of your application. I believe that they are even adding the ability for developers to get kickbacks if they build on Sia[3].

If you do want something like Dropbox that is built on Sia, there is Filebase[4].

I am not associated with Sia at all. I've just been following their twitter for a while.

[1]: https://siasky.net/

[2]: https://nebulouslabs.github.io/skynet-docs/#introduction

[3]: https://twitter.com/SiaTechHQ/status/1291441690008592384

[4]: https://docs.filebase.com/

Re: Filecoin: Proof of Storage Systems

#12

Post by momack2 »

mdaniel wrote: post #3

That is not what matches my mental model of a "deep dive," but was interesting enough to warrant an upvote For example, the phrase "decentralized marketplace of storage providers and choose the one" was just glossed over -- through what mechanism does one choose a storage provider? Is there an API that (for example) a container storage interface provider could consume? like that kind of "choose a provider"? I also wo…

You may enjoy this HackFS Workshop from Juan Benet (creator of Filecoin) that starts pretty high level but gets much more into the details of how the Filecoin network works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P28aNAdZDi4

Re: Filecoin: Proof of Storage Systems

#13

Post by wmf »

mifeng wrote: post #10

This article seems like it was written in 2017, not 2020. Filecoin raised over $200m and hasn't shipped anything that I'm aware of in 3 years. Maybe it will be revolutionary, but the crypto industry has long moved on from white whale projects that don't ship.

https://github.com/filecoin-project/lotus

https://docs.filecoin.io/how-to/install-filecoin/

Re: Filecoin: Proof of Storage Systems

#15

Post by dang »

mdaniel wrote: post #3

That is not what matches my mental model of a "deep dive," but was interesting enough to warrant an upvote For example, the phrase "decentralized marketplace of storage providers and choose the one" was just glossed over -- through what mechanism does one choose a storage provider? Is there an API that (for example) a container storage interface provider could consume? like that kind of "choose a provider"? I also wo…

Ok, we'll swap a prefix for a suffix of the title above.

(Submitted title was "Deep Dive into Filecoin".)

Re: Filecoin: Proof of Storage Systems

#16

Post by rudolph9 »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #2

> We created Filecoin because the amount of data humans generate is exponentially increasing, and we need more efficient ways to store and access it. I don't think Filecoin can be MORE efficient than some of the larger, current systems. I actually think this statement is misleading. It should say that Filecoin's goal is to offer storage options that are distributed (hence redundant), protected from censorship, and po…

There are a lot of nuanced ways a trustless distributed system can be more efficient. The article is pretty light on details but consider the content addressing mechanism. The data can be securely served by any device and independently verified by any recipient. The minimum latency of reads is theoretically much lower than the sever/client infrastructure commonly used today. It’s like edge computing with any device that can connect to one another. Obviously a lot goes into ensuring the data existing on a low latency connection to the distributed-client but the there are a number of somewhat nuanced theoretical efficiencies that can be achieved by making content addressing the core of a distributed system (caching, [as mentioned] fault-tolerance, parallel computing, etc).

Re: Filecoin: Proof of Storage Systems

#17

Post by fsflover »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #2

> We created Filecoin because the amount of data humans generate is exponentially increasing, and we need more efficient ways to store and access it. I don't think Filecoin can be MORE efficient than some of the larger, current systems. I actually think this statement is misleading. It should say that Filecoin's goal is to offer storage options that are distributed (hence redundant), protected from censorship, and po…

It can be more efficient if you are using thousands/millions of hard drives which otherwise would just be unused.

Re: Filecoin: Proof of Storage Systems

#18

Post by hinkley »

mifeng wrote: post #10

This article seems like it was written in 2017, not 2020. Filecoin raised over $200m and hasn't shipped anything that I'm aware of in 3 years. Maybe it will be revolutionary, but the crypto industry has long moved on from white whale projects that don't ship.

Going from zero to a positive velocity takes a certain kind of person who doesn't let doubts stop them.

But to build a team around a project? You can hack a lot of stuff together than only makes sense to you, crippling any of your would-be collaborators. Certain kinds of doubts should in fact stop you, or at least slow you down. It's a difficult thing to balance, and most of us struggle to pull it off.

I tried to help out with Freenet years ago. The code was in a language I had quite a lot of deep knowledge about, I should have been able to help quite a bit, but I ended up sticking to specs and architecture.

Bluntly, the code was not the output of an organized mind. Even though most of it was written by one person. It ping-ponged all over. The prototype was already full of esoteric optimizations that sacrificed clarity (and thus correctness) for a little more speed. Major rafts of functionality were still being designed, and it was already work-hardened.

When I see a team ramp up and get wedged, my first questions are about code quality, practices, and team dynamics. About cohesion. Too often the old guard can't delegate, even if they want to. With enough tribal knowledge, your coworkers just start to get interesting, and then they move on to a new job, and you replace them with another person who struggles to accomplish even simple things.

Or even worse, they made a promise that Information Theory says they can't keep, and they've been bargaining the entire time. It's a terrible place to be.

Re: Filecoin: Proof of Storage Systems

#19

Post by Taek »

fsflover wrote: post #17
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #2

> We created Filecoin because the amount of data humans generate is exponentially increasing, and we need more efficient ways to store and access it. I don't think Filecoin can be MORE efficient than some of the larger, current systems. I actually think this statement is misleading. It should say that Filecoin's goal is to offer storage options that are distributed (hence redundant), protected from censorship, and po…

It can be more efficient if you are using thousands/millions of hard drives which otherwise would just be unused.

This story falls apart a bit with Filecoin because you need to attach them to 128 GB of RAM and a high end graphics card to do their storage proofs.

Secondary markets for drives may appear to close the gap a bit though.

Post reply on HN