Filecoin Prepares for Network Launch With Final Testing Phase

Decentralized storage network provider Filecoin announced the launch of the "Incentivized Testnet," the final phase of testing for its decentralized storage network, on Wednesday.

In a press statement emailed to CoinDesk, the firm said the launch precedes its expected main network launch this summer. Developed by Protocol Labs, Filecoin’s storage network aims to provide a safeguard against the risk of a single point of failure for data storage by using a decentralized network. Filecoin was also behind one of the major ICOs in 2017 when it raised more than $257 million.

According to the firm, the top 100 miners globally as well as the top 50 miners in each continent are promised filecoin tokens, depending on how much storage they contribute and the overall size the storage network is able to achieve. Beyond growing its network, the incentive is designed to determine how robust its infrastructure really is.

“The incentive competition will stress test the Filecoin protocol’s ability to onboard massive amounts of storage in a very short timeframe,” said Ian Darrow, head of operations at Filecoin, in an emailed statement.

Read More: Filecoin Is Mailing Out Hard Drives of Climate Data to Kick-Start Its File-Storage Network

Regarding security concerns that may arise around storing data on a decentralized network, Darrow said that although the network was targeted towards distributing publicly accessible data, such as image or video sharing, users who wish to store data privately could encrypt it prior to storing it on the network.

“When it comes to consumer adoption, we expect this data security layer to be handled by application developers building on top of Filecoin,” added Darrow.

According to a recent blog post on its website, Filecoin is expected to launch its main network between July 20 and August 21. The firm expects the final phase of testing to last about three weeks, and expects that it would help prepare the network to store large amounts of user data.

Filecoin kick-started the process of onboarding miners last month, when it emailed hard drives containing climate data, literature or human genome information out to future network participants.