Decentralized storage is a crucial part of building Web3’s complete self-sovereignty. In an ideal Web3, network participants should be able to retain data ownership, while being allowed to share and compute these data in a trustless manner. To accelerate this process, Filecoin has been innovating in decentralized storage technologies and its token economics to benefit both traditional and emerging businesses from Web3 storage and computation.
Over the past few years, there has been exponential growth in the adoption of Web3 services ranging from DeFi, NFT, and decentralized storage. Because Web3 relies heavily on blockchain technologies, many believe its use cases are limited to the cryptocurrency market. However, crypto is just one part of this nascent industry. With the help of Web3 economies, real-world businesses can benefit from Web3’s secure and trustless features, such as through Filecoin to store data in a safe and transparent manner.
Web3 Is Transitioning From Pure Token Economy To Utility-Driven Service
While early blockchain economies have previously been criticized for a lack of real utility, Web3 economies have since evolved to encompass a market fit for real-world use cases; such as in the case of Filecoin, which aims to store humanity’s most important data. Powered by this mission, stakeholders have onboarded verified and valuable data to Filecoin through the Filecoin Plus Program. Currently, Fil+ deals have reached 248.6 PiB in size and 9.5 million in count, and accounts for more than 97% of overall deals on Filecoin. Growing at an average daily of >2PiB since Oct 2022, Fil+ deals are expected to continue their strong momentum and bring more data use cases on Filecoin.
Figure 1: Total Decentralized Storage Deals On Filecoin, Source: Starboard
Filecoin Sets A Prime Example Of A Service-Level Web3 Economy
Filecoin commits itself to solving data storage challenges commonly encountered by conventional centralized storage solutions. Through cutting-edge cryptographic technologies such as zero-knowledge proofs, Filecoin is able to substantially reduce storage costs and data losses, making it a Web3 economy with real utility.
What Filecoin does is in line with the needs of most Web3 and traditional businesses, which require a secure and economical cloud that simultaneously integrates data computation, storage, and retrieval in a decentralized manner. Since its launch in October 2020, Filecoin has grown to become the largest decentralized storage network in the world, with 16.7 EiB of storage capacity and close-to-zero storage costs.
Figure 2: Filecoin’s Value Proposition Resonates With Organizations, Source: IDC, 2022
Figure 3: Comparison Between AWS/Filecoin/Sia network, Source: SiaStats, Filecoin Foundation
Another reason Filecoin can unlock many business opportunities is the amount of data it produces compared to other networks. In terms of blockchain itself, the ledger can store on-chain information about its tokens and users. But unlike Bitcoin and Ethereum which only contain token data and use-case data, Filecoin is capable of providing additional service-level data. Filecoin’s service-level data showcases how service providers of the Filecoin network are providing, committing, and fulfilling their services on the network.
Figure 4: Comparison Between BTC/ETH/FIL In Data Dimensions
After 2 years of operation, some novel network analytics products such as intelligent dashboards and simulation & projection tools have sprouted out within the Filecoin ecosystem. Examples include Starboard’s simulation & projection tools, which indicate how Filecoin protocol revenue and circulating supply grow over time; Filecoin Green, which tracks Filecoin’s contribution to decarbonization; and the Filecoin Plus dashboard, which publicizes stakeholders’ information to make the Fil+ program more transparent.
Figure 5: Example of Starboard’s Simulation & Projection Tools
Figure 6: Example of Filecoin Green Dashboard
Figure 7: Example of Filecoin Plus Dashboard
Starboard Lays A Solid Foundation For Incubating Data-Driven Applications
The extensive data dimensions available on Filecoin imply that there are a lot of hidden gems within potential data-driven product opportunities that will inevitably rely on Filecoin’s network analytics, of which Starboard has been providing for a long time. With the help of Starboard’s data products, retail users can track the most recent updates on Filecoin while institutional users can build their own intelligent tools.
Figure 8: An Overview of Starboard’s Intelligent Dashboard
With the arrival of Filecoin’s FVM scheduled in November 2022, which will allow for fully decentralized Dapps to be built on Filecoin, it is the best time to start creating data-oriented tools. Network analytic tools that provide the full suite of metrics to understand the Filecoin network and empower data-driven applications will be key success drivers in the next stage of Filecoin. With the help of those data products, other ecosystems can also easily access Filecoin’s rich storage and computation resources, which will create a more vibrant and useful Web3 data economy.
One such enterprise-level solution is SpaceScope. SpaceScope is a community-powered network intelligence platform that incentivizes:
service providers with computation and storage resources to extract, process, and store blockchain network data
creators with knowledge and expertise in analyzing network data to create network intelligence
end users or applications with demand for data to consume reliable network intelligence.
Through continuous verifications provided by validators and rigorous economic structures, the graph/indexing services can be trusted and provable. SpaceScope is in the stage of active development and iterations and welcomes feedback and discussions about its services, token economics, and governance.
Figure 9: SpaceScope offers
Closing Summary
With Filecoin as an example, we could be witnessing a successful transition of Web3 networks from an industry of pure token economies to utility-driven service economies powered by tokens. Additionally, as people start to consume Web3 services, the amount of data accumulated in the network will also surge. This will result in immense demand for data-driven analytics and data-oriented applications. Starboard will continue bringing novel data products to the Filecoin ecosystem and uniting developers, storage providers, and storage clients in advancing use cases on Filecoin!