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49 lines
2.2 KiB
Markdown
49 lines
2.2 KiB
Markdown
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An evaluation of the Filecoin whitepaper
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2020-12-08 Mark Spanbroek
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https://filecoin.io/filecoin.pdf
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Goal of this evaluation is to find things to adopt or avoid while designing
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Dagger. It is not meant to be a criticism of Filecoin.
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#### Pros:
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+ Clients do not need to actively monitor hosts. Once a deal has been agreed
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upon, the network checks proofs of storage.
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+ The network actively tries to repair storage faults by introducing new
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orders in the storage market. (§4.3.4).
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+ Integrity is achieved because files are addressed using their content
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hash (§4.4).
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+ Marketplaces are explicitly designed and specified (§5).
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+ Micropayments via payment channels (§5.3.1).
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+ Integration with other blockchain systems such as Ethereum (§7.2) are being
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worked on.
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#### Cons:
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- Filecoin requires its own very specific blockchain, which influences a lot
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of its design. There is tight coupling between the blockchain, storage
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accounting, proofs and markets.
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- Proof of spacetime is much more complex than simple challenges, and only
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required to make the blockchain work (§3.3, §6.2)
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- A miners influence is proportional to the amount of storage they're
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providing (§1.2), which is an incentive to become big. This could lead to
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the same centralization issues that plague Bitcoin.
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- Incentives are geared towards making the particulars of the Filecoin
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design work, instead of directly aligned with users' interest. For instance,
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there are incentives for storage and retrieval, but it seems that a miner
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would be able to make money by only storing data, and never offering it for
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retrieval. Also, the incentive for a miner to store multiple independent
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copies does not mean protection against loss if they're all located on the
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same failing disk.
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- The blockchain contains a complete allocation table of all things that are
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stored in the network (§4.2), which raises questions about scalability.
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- Zero cash entry (such as in Swarm) doesn't seem possible.
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- Consecutive micropayments are presented as a solution for the trust problems
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while retrieving (§5.3.1), which doesn't entirely mitigate withholding
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attacks.
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- The addition of smart contracts (§7.1) feels like an unnecessary
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complication.
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