{"document_id":"BLC-PAPER-0009","slug":"filecoin-2017","title":"Filecoin: A Decentralized Storage Network","authors":"Protocol Labs","year":2017,"date_label":"July 2017","publisher":"Protocol Labs","paper_type":"Design paper","category":"Storage and networks","topics":["Storage market","Proof of replication"],"source_url":"https://www.filecoin.io/assets/documents/filecoin.pdf","source_label":"Filecoin 2017 paper","legacy_pdf_path":null,"sha256":null,"sha256_note":"No hash is published. This build does not store those PDF bytes, so a checksum would be invented. Where a legacy path exists, it points at the Internet Archive copy of the old library.","version":"July 2017 paper. The historic filecoin.pdf is an earlier sketch and a different record.","doi":null,"rights_status":"Official external source only","source_status":"Official source","use_status":"Metadata and commentary only.","licence":null,"licence_label":"No licence recorded. Rights status under review.","full_text":null,"full_text_reason":"Full text is not published on this page. Public availability is not a licence to republish a document. Blockchain Lab has not recorded a licence that permits an HTML transcription, a training set, or a retrieval corpus of the paper. Text on this page is Blockchain Lab's own wording, or a pointer to a study that is also Blockchain Lab's wording.","editorial_line":"The July 2017 paper specifies a storage market and a retrieval market. Miners are supposed to prove they still hold a replica, and to keep proving it.","canonical_url":"https://blockchainlab.com/whitepaper/filecoin-2017","record_url":"https://blockchainlab.com/research/corpus/papers/filecoin-2017","study_url":"https://blockchainlab.com/whitepaper/filecoin-2017","last_reviewed":"2026-10-01","last_checked":"2026-10-01","relationships":[{"rel":"Canonical reading","label":"Filecoin 2017 study","href":"/whitepaper/filecoin-2017"},{"rel":"Distinct earlier file","label":"2014 sketch","href":"/research/corpus/papers/filecoin-2014"},{"rel":"Concept","label":"DePIN","href":"/learn/concepts/depin"},{"rel":"Protocol profile","label":"Filecoin profile","href":"/learn/protocols/filecoin"}]}