Overview

Helpful reference materials for the Filecoin specification, implementations, and ecosystem.

About Filecoin #

• Filecoin Specification - technical specification for Filecoin protocol and its associated subsystems.
• Engineering Filecoin’s Economy - the design of Filecoin’s economic incentives.
• Filecoin Slack - announcement, open discussion of Filecoin.
• Filecoin Community - Filecoin community and ecosystem channels, discussion forums, and more.
• Filecoin 中文社区 - resources and forum for the Chinese community, maintained and moderated by CoinSummer & PL.
• Filecoin Youtube channel - various Filecoin workshops, conference talks, and meetups.
• Filecoin Core Dev meeting - technical meeting to bring together various Filecoin teams for protocol development.

Filecoin Network #

Node implementations #

• Lotus - Recommended most advanced implementation and security audited, in GoLang.

• Other implementations (In progress):

  • Fuhon - C++
  • Forest - Rust
  • Venus (formerly go-filecoin) - also in GoLang (Venus Docs).

• Lotus Docker Hub Images (unofficial):

  • glif/lotus
  • ognots/lotus - mainnet-v1.830-rc1
  • textile/lotus - latest

Networks #

Network.filecoin.io - lists all current Filecoin networks and related information.

• Mainnet
  • Mainnet network status - reports the status and incident of the Filecoin Mainnet.
• Calibration
  • Largest testnet which support 32GiB and 64GiB sectors.
  • See #fil-net-calibration-announce for announcements and #fil-net-calibration-discuss for questions and discussion in Filecoin Slack.
• Local Devnet
  • Run a Local Devnet using Lotus.
  • Textile’s Local Devnet - uses a mocked sector builder for faster deal confirmation and it is for storage app prototyping.
  • Ganache for Filecoin - local network to support development with Filecoin by various ways.

Network status #

Tools to check status and details of the network and chain.

Block explorers #

• Filfox.info - Mainnet
• Filscan - Mainnet & Calibration
• Filscout - Mainnet & Calibration
• Grafana - Network Statistics Dashboard
  • Mainnet
  • Calibration

Chain data and monitoring #

• dashboard.starboard.ventures - network health monitoring
• Filstats.io - node telemetry monitoring - add your node!
• Orphan blocks (not an official protocol term in the Filecoin Spec) - Blocks without rewards that were either mined on the wrong tipset that the network fails to deliver in time, or a mix resulting in reorgs.
  • Orphan Block Statistics
  • Orphan Block List
• Sentinel Project - Filecoin Network Monitoring and Analysis System

Storage/Deals status #

• storageindex.io - compares storage capacity of different networks
• storage.filecoin.io - general storage summary of Filecoin
• filecoin.tools - check your CID’s storage deal status. Also provides an API - check filecoin.tools/docs for reference
• file.app - Filecoin storage provider analytics
• Deals list at Filfox.io

Storage Web Applications #

Web-based applications that store your data on Filecoin. No command-line or coding experience required.

• Estuary allows uploading and storing content on the Filecoin network directly from your browser. Allows anyone with public data to store and retrieve using a few API calls.
• Slate.host - a storage application on Filecoin to collect, organize, and link files together and share them, listed on Product Hunt here on Github at filecoin-project/slate
• ChainSafe Files - Dropbox-style UI, login with Oauth or general Metamask
• File.video and Voodfy - video hosting with decentralized transcoding from LivePeer
• Starling Framework for Data Integrity
  • to securely capture, store and verify human history
  • learn more at starlinglab.org/78days or the Filecoin blog interview
  • Starlingstorage.io - API + CLI that simplified storing data to a local Lotus node for preservation use cases.

APIs & Developer tools #

Developer tools, API clients & storage services that developers can use to build on Filecoin.

Storage APIs for app builders #

• Estuary - a simple IPFS node that integrates with Filecoin. For infrastructure operators, developers and users.
  • Estuary Docs
  • Estuary www - a simple web app example
  • Estuary Rclone - sync to and from different cloud storage providers and Estuary
• NFT.storage - beta service from Protocol Labs for storing off-chain NFT data on IPFS and Filecoin.
• Web3.storage - beta service from Protocol Labs for storing off-chain dapp data on IPFS and Filecoin, with help from Pinata (a fast IPFS Pinning Service) to distribute the content across IPFS
• Slate.host - has a Developer API that allows you upload files with an account
• Textile.io’s tools - suite of tools for interacting with IPFS and Filecoin
  • includes The Hub, Buckets, ThreadsDB, Powergate, Tableland (new) and Filecoin bridges to Polygon and NEAR
  • Powergate - infrastructure tool for using IPFS for hot storage and retrieval and Filecoin for cold, with deal helpers and other convenience features
  • Textile Buckets - simplified cloud bucket store on IPFS with archive to Filecoin option using Powergate under the hood
• Fleek’s tools - provides access to Fleek’s hosted services using IPFS, Textile, Filecoin, Ethereum, etc.
  • Space SDK - JS library backed by Fleek’s hosted services
  • Space Daemon - GoLang library for building desktop apps

Message signing tools #

• Filecoin Signing Tools - Recommended a pure JS or Rust / WASM / JSONRPC library for creating signed messages apart from a Filecoin node.
  • Also available on npm at @zondax/filecoin-signing-tools
  • For an open source example of how to use it see the Glif web wallet on Github.
• Filecoin JS Signer - [last update: June 2021] pure TS / JS library for creating signed messages and interacting with Filecoin’s built-in Actors (like Payment Channel and Multisig), used by the Filecoin Loans grant project.
  • On npm at @blitslabs/filecoin-js-signer

Wallet-related tools #

• Filecoin Rosetta API Proxy - Rosetta is an API standard created by Coinbase for a consistent interface to many chains for wallets and exchanges.
• FilSnap MetaMask Plugin - MetaMask has a new plugin system currently still in beta that developers can try out. The MM UI will not change but Filecoin keys are in the MM vault. Try it with https://filsnap.chainsafe.io/

Node Infrastructure & APIs #

NOTE: making deep calls into the chain’s history may take some time to return and it may be more efficient to use a chain database (e.g. used by block explorers) that stores the chain’s history and is optimized for queries.

• Glif nodes and Infura - Hosted endpoints to Filecoin mainnet and testnet.
  • These endpoints support read-only calls and MPoolPush() for sending signed transactions to the network (which can be signed using the Message signing tools).
• Lotus JSON-RPC API - Lotus offers the full feature set of its capabilities through API.
  • lotus API Postman sample - (shows sample wallet calls only)

Scalable endpoint hosting #

For running a node cluster of load balanced Lotus JSON RPC API endpoints.

• Filecoin-chart (k8 cluster) - Helm chart for hosting Lotus Node clients.

Filecoin API clients #

• Filecoin.js (outdated) - higher-level JS library for interacting with Lotus via JSON-RPC API.
• js-lotus-client - lower-level JS wrapper for basic parsing of the Lotus JSON RPC API.
• lotus-json-rpc-provider (outdated) - wraps the Lotus API in TypeScript.

Storage provider index API #

• Filrep.io API - A suite of RESTFul JSON endpoints to discover the best storage provider to make deals with.
• Textile Storage Provider Index - API and CLI to find storage providers by price, observed deals, speed from North American nodes.

Data prep tools #

• CAR files - automatically used on Lotus import for less than 32 and 64 GiB, Filecoin archive format serialized from DAGs, see also offline deals for large datasets.
• go-graphsplit - by FileDrive chunks a larger single DAG for storage in default Filecoin 32 and 64 GiB sector sizes.
• IPFS - you can use ipfs add with an IPFS node then add the CID from a Filecoin node.

Databases using IPFS and Filecoin #

• Tableland - (new) create familiar SQL tables to read and write dynamic NFT metadata or application data for dapps, from Textile
• OrbitDB - decentralized multi-party database on IPFS with multi-party syncing with topic pubsub and CRDTs. Filecoin integration using Powergate available at orbit-db-powergate-io.
• ThreadsDB - decentralized multi-party database for user-siloed data on IPFS, from Textile

Other developer tools #

• js-rle - RLE+ Spec. Learn about rle-bitset-encoding in the Filecoin Spec.
• Truffle for Filecoin - building apps to preserve files to IPFS and Filecoin.

Storage providers #

Storage provider reputation systems #

• Codefi Storage - view the Filecoin Storage Market, storage provider info, asking price, completed deals.
• FIL Swan - for offline deals, storage provider info, prices, offline deal acceptance.
• Filrep.io - Index of online storage providers and their pricing, ranked by power and reputation score.
• Textile Storage Provider Index - API and CLI to find storage providers by price, observed deals, speed from North American nodes.
• SpaceGap - shows storage proof deadlines and sector details for the top 50 storage providers.

Storage provider tools #

• Bidbot - A Filecoin Network sidecar to bid in storage deal auctions.
• Filgas.io - real-time Filecoin mining gas queries.
• Lotus Farcaster - Prometheus, Grafana and Python monitoring dashboard.
• Mining Benchmarks: Hardware performance comparisons from the Filecoin community.

Storage client and miner programs #

• Filecoin Storage Providers - Interested in becoming an SP? A bootcamp, grants and expert advice is available here!
• Filecoin Plus Verified Data Program
  • incentivizes valuable data stored on Filecoin with a social trust network for verified data
  • Clients can apply to Notaries to receive DataCap and incentivize storage providers at 10x to their quality-adjusted power, increasing probability of block rewards
• Slingshot Competition - ended in 2021 and has now become Filecoin Evergreen

Retrieval Market resources (WIP experiments) #

The Retrieval Market is in early development; research and development teams are actively exploring improvements.

• Browser Retrieval Client
• Browser Retrieval Client using WASM
• ChainSafe’s Full Node Retrieval Client
• Decentralized Data Delivery Markets - Open Problems and RFCs
• July 2020 Retrieval Markets Workshop - list of Sessions

Wallets #

Tools for sending and receiving FIL tokens. For dev tooling see message signing tools above

Wallets (audited) #

Wallets that have conducted third-party audits of their open-source code by a reputable security auditor are recommended below.

• Glif web wallet - recommended - security-audited web wallet that supports sending & receiving FIL, also integrated with Ledger hardware (uses the audited filecoin-signing-tools library below).
• Ledger HW wallet in Filecoin Docs - recommended - Ledger Live support for Filecoin is coming soon. Ledger hardware wallets can be used with the Glif.io or a Filecoin Lotus node’s CLI.

Also see the Wallet-related tools section above.

Other wallets #

The wallets below support FIL tokens. We recommend verifying that these have been security audited by reputable 3rd party auditors and that the codebase is open sourced. Please evaluate these wallets for security risks at your own discretion, as an insecure wallet may lead to loss of funds.

• BraveWallet
• BlitsWallet - by the team behind Filecoin.loans
• Cobo
• Fox Wallet
• ImToken
• MathWallet
• Open-source on Github, official mobile wallet of Binance
• TrustWallet

Ecosystem galleries #

• Community Projects Showcase - updated news about ecosystem projects
• Filecoin Ecosystem

Hackathons #

• Upcoming Hackathons
  • Keep a lookout for upcoming hackathons!
  • All winners are eligible for Next Steps Grants after the Hackathon!

Grants and accelerators #

• Filecoin Dev Grants - ongoing monthly dev grant program to support open source projects + new RFPs on Filecoin
  • funded by the Filecoin Foundation
• Accelerators