Filecoin protocol allows anyone in the world to rent out spare storage space on their computer. you can think of it as the airbnb for your unused storage space

or as an alternative to cloud storage providers, like dropbox or google drive, but FileCoin is decentralized

advantages of a decentralized storage service:

• 💰 Cost - By creating a larger free market for data storage, this should drive the price down

• 🌍 Economy - Instead of building new storage computers, Filecoin makes use of existing resources

• 🔒 Safety - While Dropbox and iCloud have been hacked, a decentralized network means there is no single point of attack, making it harder to compromise

HOW FILECOIN WORKS?

In Filecoin, miners are the heart of the network. However, mining in Filecoin works quite differently. Instead of contributing computational power, miners contribute storage capacity to be used in deals with clients looking to store data

Three types of miners exist on Filecoin Network: Storage Miners, Retrieval Miners, Repair Miners

Storage Miners

They are responsible for storing files and data on the network. They earn Filecoin by storing data for clients, and computing cryptographic proofs to verify storage across time.

Once a user decides on a miner to store with based on their available capacity, duration, and desired price, they lock up a sufficient amount of Filecoin native token FIL

The client then transfers the data to the miner which packs the data into a sector, seals it, and begins submitting proofs to the chain. Throughout the lifetime of the deal, the miner submits ongoing proofs to the chain. Each time a miner submits the proof, funds locked by clients are released to miners. If a proof is missing or delayed, the miner’s reward is slashed

Retrieval Miners

Saving your documents on someone else’s computer is risky. So, Filecoin splits up data and stores each piece of data in different locations. This means the host cannot simply hack the document on their computer and gain access to the user’s files.

To retrieve files from the network, retrieval miners are used

the most important upgrade about Filecoin was FVM(filecoin virtual machine) which is an ethereum compatible Virtual Machine, that allows you to build Dapps with Solidity language