Filecoin Price Today

The current real-time Filecoin price is $4.99 . FIL price has plummeted by 6.73% in the last day and decreased by 10.88% in the last seven days. It’s important to note that the current Filecoin market capitalization is $3,066,694,144. The maximum supply is coins, with a circulating supply of 614,389,031.00. FIL is ranked #43 in terms of market cap.

Filecoin Essentials 

Filecoin (FIL) is a cryptocurrency project building a trustless and immutable decentralized storage network. The project uses the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) protocol as its underlying network, while Filecoin acts as an incentive layer, rewarding participants. 

Juan Benet, the founder of the InterPlanetary File System, created Filecoin. While the project was initially conceptualized in 2014, FIL was released in 2017 following an Initial Coin Offering (ICO), which raised $205 million. 

Understanding Filecoin

The Filecoin network and its storage systems are worldwide. When an order is placed on the data storage marketplace, Filecoin automatically pairs storage providers with clients based on their requirements. Customers are given a private key that can be used to access their data exclusively, preventing mishandling. 

While there are some restrictions on who can provide storage with Filecoin, the project still needs to verify the integrity of data stored on the network, to achieve this, Filecoin storage providers perform mining duties in addition to data storage, which provides cryptographic proof that the provider is storing the data they claim to be. 

The Filecoin network has three participants, each fulfilling a unique role:

• Storage Providers – People or companies pledge their unused hardware (hard drives, SSDs) to the Filecoin network. In return for providing storage and proofs, they can earn crypto rewards paid in FIL. 
• Storage Clients – Interested parties can also purchase storage on the Filecoin network. It has several benefits compared to other forms of data storage, including unparalleled integrity, low costs, and immutability. 
• Retrieval Providers – The network also relies on retrieval providers to provide clients with rapid access to their data. Often, storage providers operate as retrieval providers, but independent organizations also participate. 

The Utility of Filecoin

Filecoin is innovating how we store data by building a decentralized storage solution based on blockchain technology. While traditional data storage methods can face issues if a fire occurs, Filecoin leverages its decentralized network to maintain data integrity. As such, Filecoin has become used to store important information that cannot be lost. 

While cloud storage systems like Dropbox and Google Drive are typical, they’re heavily centralized, and users don’t have complete power over their data. With Filecoin, people are custodians of their own data, granting them more control and privacy. 

Proof-of-Storage

In contrast to Ethereum’s Proof-of-Stake (PoS) system, Filecoin uses a custom consensus mechanism to validate that storage providers are correctly storing data. 

The project’s Proof-of-Storage system comprises Proof-of-Replication (PoRep), which confirms the validity of stored data by outputting a unique encoding, and Proof-of-Spacetime (PoST), which checks that data is stored where it should be for the correct period. 

Filecoin Price History – Key Milestones

The Filecoin token generation event occurred in December 2017 following a successful presale. The FIL token was initially listed at $11.48 and shot up to around $26.49 within a month. However, demand for FIL subsided, leading to FIL falling to around $3.75 by September, where it hovered until mid-2020. 

Demand for FIL shot up as hype built around its mainnet launch, leading the token to hit $22.22 in August 2020. The mainnet launched in October and was followed by a series of exchange listings, causing FIL to shoot up to $44.09. 

FIL quickly dropped as investors took profit. However, the 2021 bull run took hold of the market, causing the asset to go parabolic. It achieved an all-time high of  $237.24 in April, 6,364% higher than today’s valuation. The market experienced a sharp correction in the months following, causing FIL to drop to around $20 by March 2022. 

Since 2022, FIL has struggled to gain upward momentum and has stayed roughly between $3 and $5, although March 2024 saw FIL rebound slightly to $11.47. Today, the asset traded for $4.99 , a 98.45% discount compared to its all-time high.