Filecoin

Filecoin is a blockchain-based cryptocurrency and storage network designed to enable users to rent out their unused hard drive space and earn Filecoin, while simultaneously allowing others to leverage that network for cloud data storage.

Filecoin works in conjunction with the InterPlanetary Filesystem (commonly known by acronym IPFS), which is an open source protocol used for storing digital content and metadata on a distributed network.

Filecoin allows users to rent unused hard drive capacity. Filecoin blockchain acts as permanent ledger recording and executing these storage space allocation deals. Users are paid in Filecoin cryptocurrency.

In 2020, Filecoin launched its mainnet after 2 years of development. Since then, the total number of nodes has grown by orders of magnitude, making Filecoin one of the most decentralized digital currencies. Its transaction fee is also low compared to other networks, thanks to innovative proof-of-replication and proof-of-spacetime consensus algorithms, that do not require energy intensive computational "mining".