Liftoff Day 3 Recap: The Holy Grail of the Blockchain Ecosystem
Today we wrapped up day 3 at Filecoin Liftoff Week. We heard from developers across the Web3 ecosystem, including Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin, Filecoin product lead Pooja Shah, Infura senior engineer Tim Myers, Aave CEO Stani Kulechov, and Ren CTO Loong Wang. Here are some highlights from today’s “Build on Filecoin” agenda, and a snapshot of what’s in store for tomorrow.
🔗 The changing relationship with Web2
Filecoin’s launch has ignited something in the minds of blockchain developers about the relationship between Web3 and Web2. Ren CTO Loong Wang summarized it well when he described memes from crypto early days about taking Web2 apps and entirely replicating them on Web3 to create a parallel yet identical Web3 world. That vision has not materialized because of two primary issues: the massive cost of storage and transactions. Filecoin’s mainnet launch has fixed half of that problem - the cost of storage. Wang predicted that other layer 1 and layer 2 solutions addressing transaction costs would fix the other half of the issue, and we would arrive at a blockchain ecosystem capable of truly replicating - and supercharging - the Web2 world. When discussing this relationship between Ethereum and Filecoin with Ethereum co-founder Lubin, Filecoin founder Juan Benet echoed a similar sentiment. He noted that Ethereum developers can now rely on long-term storage that is crypto-powered and cryptonative, without having to rely on a Web2-oriented model. The launch of Filecoin now enables them to write a contract on Ethereum that can hire out that storage from Filecoin in a more automated process. Lubin doubled down on this sentiment, emphasizing that the “holy grail of the blockchain ecosystem is to build fully decentralized applications”; ones that don’t, for example, rely on centralized, Web2-stored data. When we think about how to get there - the Web3 replicated world of Web2 - we could take some advice from Textile CEO Andrew Hill, who celebrated the creativity and innovation of Web3 developers who are creating entirely new applications, but suggested we might find incredible value as an ecosystem in addressing markets and connecting with applications that already exist.
🤝 Fast friends with Ethereum
Prominent developers from across the Ethereum ecosystem were present throughout the Liftoff Week event today, joining Filecoin leaders to discuss the future of Web3. The overarching sentiment was clear: the Ethereum community has long been waiting for the capabilities that Filecoin brings to dapps and the ecosystem as a whole. Ethereum has attracted a tremendous ecosystem of developers, evangelists, and entrepreneurs to build out robust applications like DeFi and emerging ones like gaming and NFTs. Corbin Page of ConsenSys Codefi explained the utility that Filecoin will have for Ethereum when he noted that Ethereum’s state is “bursting at the seams” and that Filecoin will provide a network where large datasets can live and be accessed when needed. Ren CTO Loong Wang described the value of the relationship in the opposite direction as well. In a matter of weeks, Ren plans to enable FIL to be wrapped as an ERC-20, enabling it to be fully functional on Ethereum and, in particular, within the DeFi ecosystem. Providing liquidity is - as Aave CEO Stani Kulechov described it - the “bread and butter” of a protocol, and connecting FIL to the innovative world of DeFi is a tremendous step for Filecoin. Summarizing the Ethereum community’s attitude towards the Filecoin launch, Joe Lubin emphasized, “two legit heavyweight Layer 1 protocols are Bitcoin and Ethereum, and I would argue that as we build out the decentralized protocol ecosystem, Filecoin will rapidly take its own place as one of those heavyweight protocols.”
🔩 Next Up: Developer Tools
Throughout the day, developers joined to talk about the tools they are building and using to fast track the development of the Filecoin ecosystem. Joe Lubin discussed MetaMask Snaps, a recent feature release providing an API to connect other protocols with MetaMask. The team plans to roll out a Filecoin Snap soon. Lubin also highlighted Codefi Activate’s Filecoin Storage web app and API to make price discovery for storage on the Filecoin network simple and transparent. Infura senior engineer Tim Myers introduced Infura’s Filecoin system API to provide easier developer onboarding to the network. Jordan Ellis walked the audience through Web3API. Peter Vangarderen of Artefactual Systems talked about Pygate. And so much more. Overall, the message was clear: developers will find more and more tooling and support to kickstart their journeys to build on Filecoin.
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Join us for Liftoff Week!
This week is Filecoin Liftoff Week, five days of talks, panels, workshops, demos, and community events. From October 19 - 23, tune in to listen to leaders from across the Web3 ecosystem as we celebrate Filecoin’s launch last week and plan for its continued growth in the months and years to come. Register and join us!
Tomorrow, October 22, is day 4 of Liftoff Week, during which we’ll be focusing on Storing on Filecoin. A preview of the agenda:
- 1:00pm PDT: Fireside chat with Brewster Kahle of Internet Archive and Open Library and Filecoin founder Juan Benet.
- 1:35pm PDT: Matt Ober and Kyle Tut give a talk and demo about how Pinata will use Filecoin to give our users new ways to easily ensure data resiliency.
- 2:30pm PDT: Chris Pacia of OpenBazaar “How 5mb Was Built.”
- 3:05pm PDT: “Filecoin for Video” - a meetup with Doug Petkanics of Livepeer and Leandro Barbosa of Voodfy.
- 3:40pm PDT: Mikeal Rogers of Protocol Labs “Building Data Structures for Filecoin.”
- 4:00pm PDT: “Decentralizing the People’s Branch Project” with Antoine McGrath of Atoms and Bill Marczak, postdoc researcher at UC Berkeley.
- 4:20pm PDT: “Deep Dive Into Data Storage On Filecoin” with Carbon Five senior developer Hannah Howard.
- 4:55pm PDT: “Filecoin Plus: Incentivize Useful Storage on Filecoin” with Viraj Anchan.
- 5:15pm PDT: “From Storage to Justice” with Jonathan Dotan of the Stanford Center for Blockchain Research. Learn how Filecoin’s unique cryptographic proofs are being put to the task of establishing trust in our most sensitive digital records, such as the documentation of human rights violations, war crimes and testimony of genocide.
