BTC breaks through $50,000 again today! And the performance of FIL is also remarkable, when will it break through $300?
In the final analysis, the appreciation space and market performance of FIL depend on its application and community value. Today Xiaoba will take you to understand the role of IPFS behind Filecoin~
Built by Protocol Labs, IPFS is a service that relies on a distributed network of computers to host content such as mirrored web pages, files, and applications, all of which you can get by entering a link.
Instead of pointing you to a location, an IPFS link will direct you to content that can be stored on any number of nodes or computers around the world. As long as the website or content is hosted on at least one computer, it will always be accessible.
As of August 2021, IPFS already has 2 million unique users per week, about 200,000 network nodes, and about 125TB of gateway traffic per week.
How does IPFS work?
Files uploaded to IPFS are first broken into smaller chunks, distributed across multiple computers, and assigned a hash value to allow users to locate them. Instead of using the familiar location-based links like the normal web, IPFS links are based on each item's unique hash identifier. This helps to locate which node or nodes have a file or website available; it is then made available to users via a peer-to-peer connection, similar to BitTorrent technology.
IPFS is not based on a blockchain, but it is equally immutable: the content cannot be changed, or the hash itself would change. However, IPFS has a version control system that allows you to add new versions of files and connect them to previous versions, thus ensuring that the entire history is complete.
How to use IPFS?
At present, some browsers already support IPFS browsing, while ordinary browsers require additional plug-ins. Both the Brave and Opera browsers support IPFS links directly: you just paste the link into your browser and go to the site or file. Brave enables users to access IPFS content through public gateways or user-local nodes.
Alternatively, users can choose to access IPFS content from a browser using public gateways such as https://ipfs.io or https://cloudflare-ipfs.com. The gateway will use the link to automatically navigate and route to the IPFS content. There are many gateways to choose from, and you can log in to the github of IPFS to view.
Want to run your own IPFS node and add content to the network? The easiest way to get started is with IPFS Desktop, the official software suite from Protocol Labs. You can install and operate your own nodes with Windows, Mac and Ubuntu systems, and then add your own files to the network.
IPFS Companion is a web browser plug-in available for Chrome, Edge, Brave, Firefox, and Opera that allows users to interact with IPFS Desktop and installed IPFS nodes directly from the browser. The plugin also allows browsers that do not originally support IPFS to add ipfs:// addresses.
IPFS is not as smooth and easy to use as a standard website, but like many Web3 platforms today, this should improve over time - especially when more web browsers support native links. There is also a service called Unstoppable Domains, which provides easier-to-remember URLs to point to IPFS content, and more and more browsers are starting to support these URLs as well.
As the underlying pillar of Web 3, IPFS is driving the future of Web 3 development. The recently popular NFT can use IPFS to create metadata and actually go on the chain; in addition, the governance voting system called Snapshot allows token holders to vote on DAO proposals, which is an increasingly common component in DeFi projects part. It is believed that with the expansion of the developer community, the application scenarios of IPFS will become more and more abundant, and IPFS will become more and more useful.
