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Filecoin: A Decentralized Storage Network [pdf]

filecoin.io

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Re: Filecoin: A Decentralized Storage Network [pdf]

#2
Coming from academia, these sort of papers would not pass any sort of double-bind peer review process. Where's the actual science? Where are the experiments?

It seems to be just a document describing the protocol of Filecoin, which is fine. The problem is that all these "whitepapers" coming from these cryptocurrency communities seem to be promoted as scientific papers, but in reality do not stand a chance in any science/academic-related setting.

I'd wish they'd give more attention towards the science, if there's any. Otherwise, hey, sure it's just a PDF on some site - but don't call them "papers".

Re: Filecoin: A Decentralized Storage Network [pdf]

#3
post #2

Coming from academia, these sort of papers would not pass any sort of double-bind peer review process. Where's the actual science? Where are the experiments? It seems to be just a document describing the protocol of Filecoin, which is fine. The problem is that all these "whitepapers" coming from these cryptocurrency communities seem to be promoted as scientific papers, but in reality do not stand a chance in any scie…

The fact that this paper uses a very vanilla LaTeX format is almost taunting to academia. At least many other "whitepapers" (e.g. Gnosis) format theirs more like a corporate brochure.

Re: Filecoin: A Decentralized Storage Network [pdf]

#4
post #2

Coming from academia, these sort of papers would not pass any sort of double-bind peer review process. Where's the actual science? Where are the experiments? It seems to be just a document describing the protocol of Filecoin, which is fine. The problem is that all these "whitepapers" coming from these cryptocurrency communities seem to be promoted as scientific papers, but in reality do not stand a chance in any scie…

Also satoshi nakamotos original bitcoin whitepaper wouldn't pass as academic paper. However it still is veey useful at explaining the basic idea behind bitcoin. In this context whitepaper means a little bit different thing than in scientific context.

Re: Filecoin: A Decentralized Storage Network [pdf]

#6
post #2

Coming from academia, these sort of papers would not pass any sort of double-bind peer review process. Where's the actual science? Where are the experiments? It seems to be just a document describing the protocol of Filecoin, which is fine. The problem is that all these "whitepapers" coming from these cryptocurrency communities seem to be promoted as scientific papers, but in reality do not stand a chance in any scie…

Also satoshi nakamotos original bitcoin whitepaper wouldn't pass as academic paper. However it still is veey useful at explaining the basic idea behind bitcoin. In this context whitepaper means a little bit different thing than in scientific context.

Actually there were experiments in the original Bitcoin paper. And it would've probably passed a workshop-related setting for academia.

More than the academic presentation though, I'm just baffled by the lack of science that these projects with huge followings have.

Re: Filecoin: A Decentralized Storage Network [pdf]

#10
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also satoshi nakamotos original bitcoin whitepaper wouldn't pass as academic paper. However it still is veey useful at explaining the basic idea behind bitcoin. In this context whitepaper means a little bit different thing than in scientific context.

Actually there were experiments in the original Bitcoin paper. And it would've probably passed a workshop-related setting for academia. More than the academic presentation though, I'm just baffled by the lack of science that these projects with huge followings have.

Please be honest. When the original Bitcoin or Ethereum whitepapers came out, wouldn't your original comment, of these wp not passing any science/academia setting, still ring true then?

Also, even if they don't pass an academia setting, what is your point? So many papers actually pass academia setting but does it do anything worthwhile? Filecoin is a project in existence for the past 3yrs working on top of IPFS, a popular file sharing protocol, and being built by a venture funded startup. Its founder has a vision of a decentralized future which makes intuitive sense.

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