Filecoin: A Decentralized Storage Network

The problem the paper names

Cloud storage concentrates files, prices and the decision to delete inside a few firms. The paper asks for a market in which a storage provider proves it still holds a unique replica, and in which the chain's consensus power is tied to that useful storage rather than to an empty hash.

What the design proposes

• A storage market and a retrieval market are separate. Storing data is not the same job as serving it.
• Proofs of replication are meant to show that a miner dedicated physical storage to a particular copy.
• Proofs of spacetime extend that claim across time, so a miner cannot prove once and delete.

How the mechanism is specified

• The paper formalises a decentralised storage network as a scheme with properties, then argues Filecoin meets them under stated assumptions.
• Orders, deals and proofs are protocol objects. A deal is not a reputation handshake.
• The 2017 text says the work was in progress. Later proofs and the live network's parameters are subsequent specifications.

What this page does not treat as proven

• Do not cite the 2014 sketch in the historic library as if it were this paper.
• A proof of storage does not make retrieval fast, and the paper separates the markets for that reason.
• We do not repeat offering language or price targets from 2017 fundraising material.

Why a venture studio still reads it

The distinction between the storage market and the retrieval market is the part ventures drop. A network that can prove a disk still holds a file, but cannot price the moment a user wants the file back, has built only half of this design.