Filecoin Confirms Long-Awaited Mainnet Launch for Next Month

Three years after its $205 million initial coin offering (ICO), Filecoin has said its live network is about to launch.

• In a post Sunday, the blockchain-based storage provider said the mainnet will launch at block 148,888, currently expected on Oct. 15.
• Designed as a decentralized alternative to Amazon Web Services or Cloudflare, a data retrieval service, Filecoin raised $205 million in a 2017 token sale – the most raised in an ICO at the time.
• Having originally committed itself to a mainnet launch in mid-2019, the project has sustained industry interest with 230 projects and 1,000 developers set to begin work on Filecoin when live.
• More than 400 miners from around the world participated in this month's "Space Race" testnet phase where network data capacity increased by more than 325+ pebibytes – seven times the entire written works of mankind, in all languages.
• In the coming weeks, the project said it will continue adding storage, optimize operations and undergo final tests, as well as allow community members to prepare their own systems ahead of the launch.
• Approximately 3.5 million native FIL tokens – used to buy and sell storage on the network – will be distributed to Space Race participants.
• As Filecoin has refused to say anything that could sway FIL's initial price, it's unknown how much the 3.6 million tokens might be worth in dollar terms.
• According to Filecoin block explorer Filfox, the network had reached a block height of 99,876 at time of writing.

See also: Inside the Craze for Filecoin Crypto Mining in China

EDIT (Sept. 29, 15:30 UTC): A previous version of this article incorrectly stated the amount raised in the ICO as well as the amount of FIL distributed to Space Race participants.