Filecoin Virtual Machine
On the 15th of July, 2014, when Filecoin was released into the cryptocurrency world — the truest, game-changing brainchild of Juan Benet, part of Protocol Labs, and also the founder of Interplanetary File System on which it is developed — there were speculations by the public on whether this blockchain and cryptocurrency digital storage platform will survive the test of time. Enclosed in the skeptical bubble of up-and-running Bitcoin at the time, people were quite suspicious of the whole New Idea, especially the small, upcoming players in the blockchain industry. But for the Big Players, and perhaps the crypto fanatics, it was less a matter of skepticism and more like a consequence of brutal fascination; never had it been viewed as a possibility, at least not in those dark beginning years, an evolution of a technology that uses a combination of proof-of-storage (PoS) and proof-of-replication (PoRep) consensus mechanisms to allow any data form to be stored in physically independent storage. But so was the primal case of Filecoin: an open-source and decentralized peer-to-peer network on which users can sell their excess storage.
As the old saying goes, ‘Time has all the answers,” and indeed, in many ways, there’s no better proof of this truth than the Filecoin network which has grown over the years to become a robust platform that allows users to verifiably store and access NFTs, public good datasets, Web3 and Metaverse assets, and lots more. But this is only the start of the long race. The Filecoin network can do — become — a lot more. Imagine how the introduction of general smart contract programmability to the network can bring forth more opportunities for cross-chain interoperability and integration of a distributed channel. According to CoinDesk’s 2023 Predictions, Filecoin will become a “fully-fledged layer 1 protocol in its right, paving the way for the world’s largest decentralized data economy.”
Following that course, Filecoin will be launching a new feature in the spring of this year, the Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM), which is considered by researchers as a central piece in the next generation of the decentralized storage ecosystem. Let’s take a brief look at FVM.
A Brief Introduction to the Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM)
Right now, Filecoin is popularly regarded as a storage and retrieval network. Through thousands of storage providers globally, it has provided up to 18 EiB of distributed data capacity to the world. But storage, although at the core of Filecoin’s fundamental purpose, is merely the tip of the melting berg. Because the Filecoin network has completed its milestones for the launch of the Filecoin Virtual Machine which will allow tons of builders to compute and analyze over and with data on Filecoin.
FVM= Provable Storage + Smart Contracts
The Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM) is a runtime ecosystem for smart contracts, also known as actors in the Filecoin network. These smart contracts support both Solidity and any language that compiles to WASM. The FVM is responsible for the proper and secure execution of these smart contracts. This means that you can perform on-chain and off-chain computation over state data, which in turn brings about an upstream of possibilities and use cases to the Filecoin shores.
The Impact of Bringing Smart Contracts into the Filecoin Network
The Filecoin platform has gotten much attention from the public since its inception. As a storage and retrieval-centric network, most people have measured how much utility and rewards it can bring to them and are steadfastly attentive to the trend. With the evolution of FVM — which enables developers to implement bridges for cross-chain interoperability as a means to share liquidity, and to integrate applications run on other chains with the storage capability offered by the Filecoin platform — the public attention is almost a full ride.
However, there’s a big question hanging around Filecoin’s new and seemingly productive invention: why smart contracts in Filecoin when it has already made its mark of recognition? And why now?
The answer to that question is not only simple but also an incontestable fact: smart contracts — or “actors,” as they are known in the Filecoin community — can bring a fresh perspective to the whole idea of decentralized storage, fostering intelligent and dynamic storage solutions that are hard to create with web2 technology: like decentralized computation over data stored in Filecoin;
Crowd-funded dataset preservation; Smarter storage markets; time-locked retrieval and application of collateral loans.
The integration of smart contracts into the Filecoin ecosystem in the creation of Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM) is purely a revolutionary treat; or to stretch its high-scale importance both for Filecoin and especially the users: a haven for developers to build new use cases on top of and within the Filecoin ecosystem.
Some Use Cases of FVM
Data Access Control
If there’s one advantage most centralized storage solutions have over web3 services, it’s the unlimited nature of their individual data access.
The FVM allows users to do the same as they make use of threshold encryption networks like Medusa to individually and collectively control who can access a collection of data without any validators or contracts obtaining access to the data themselves.
Data-centric Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (Data DAOs)
With data access control systems, the FVM gathers a pool of resources from individuals and organizations to enable users to curate and preserve data sets. The creation and management of Data-centric DAOs through the help of FVM, in many ways, allows the usage of tokens and NFTs as units to represent as well as compound value and exchange those tokens to demand services and even buy access rights.
Perpetual storage
In the past, before the coming of the FVM, storage contracts never lasted more than a year or two, such that any user who wanted to continue storing their data needed to create a new deal before the end of the running deal. And to make matters worse: this process was manual.
Right now, the FVM creates an opportunity for users to store once with repair and replication bots to manage the deal creation tasks. With the help of smart contracts, users can fund data storage permanently by simply provisioning their wallets with FIL. Not only does the process give users an opportunity to store data for a long time, but also, they are likely to benefit from Filecoin’s verifiable proof of storage.
Collateral Loans
FIL (Filecoin) token holds, when put to work, can help Filecoin storage providers gain access to FIL for collateral while receiving interests in exchange. Better still, these loans are trustless and purpose-locked, and they can automatically be paid back.
Ethereum compatibility
It’s important to note that the FVM is fully EVM-compatible, which means that new ERC-20 tokens can be launched on the Filecoin network or bridged directly to token pools on other chains. More still, layer 2 networks can log into Filecoin and make use of its storage power and security offers.
CrossFi is a cross-chain protocol that provides liquidity for Filecoin staking and rewards.
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