Bridging the Filecoin and Ethereum Communities

Building a decentralized data and transaction infrastructure for the future of the internet depends upon interoperation between decentralized protocols like Ethereum, Filecoin, and IPFS. That’s why we’re excited to announce Protocol Labs’ expanded collaboration with ConsenSys, one of the most trusted software engineering leaders in the Ethereum space. PL is the organization that led the development of IPFS and Filecoin, and this new collaboration integrates Filecoin’s distributed marketplace for data storage and retrieval into ConsenSys’s Ethereum product stack.

ConsenSys’s full product suite serves millions of users and supports billions of blockchain queries for a wide variety of software and tech clients, and it was one of the main reasons why Ethereum’s ecosystem took off in 2015. For years, ConsenSys has led the way in integrating the decentralized finance and Ethereum ecosystems with IPFS’s distributed storage network. In 2016, ConsenSys’s Infura became the first product to offer an IPFS API, enabling anyone building applications on Ethereum to store their data using IPFS’s distributed protocol. With this new collaboration, ConsenSys will help put Filecoin on a similar trajectory of growth and success.

In more ways than one, Ethereum and IPFS are complementary ecosystems for the decentralized web; Ethereum provides guaranteed execution of agreements and decentralized transactions, while IPFS delivers the distributed storage solutions for data and information.

With the launch of Filecoin’s mainnet, Ethereum developers now have access to a new world of functionality for ensuring their data is safely stored in a decentralized and cost-efficient way. PL’s collaboration with ConsenSys aims to develop and introduce the new tools that developers and consumers need to easily make use of Filecoin’s next-generation blockchain and marketplace.

This is a moment in history that is particularly poignant. We have an opportunity to build the new technological infrastructure that can change the nature of trust and power for the next generation of the web, one that will put data autonomy, decentralized verification, and tamper-proof data systems front and center for web and app development. Together, ConsenSys and Protocol Labs will help the world build the enabling layers of Web3.

Welcoming the ConsenSys Suite of Tools for the Filecoin Network

Through this collaboration, ConsenSys will build on its full suite of tools to offer new functionalities that facilitate the use of the Filecoin network. These tools will further increase the convergence of Ethereum, IPFS, and Filecoin’s respective communities of builders, developers, and end users.

• Filecoin Storage and Filecoin Defi Bridge – ConsenSys’s Codefi Activate, which facilitates the launch and use of blockchain networks through utility tokens on a single user-friendly platform – has launched Filecoin Storage and the Filecoin Defi Bridge to connect the Filecoin marketplace to the Ethereum community. Filecoin Storage provides a web app and an API to make the price of storage on the Filecoin marketplace easily searchable, while Filecoin Defi Bridge enables users to convert their Filecoin (FIL) tokens into ERC-20 tokenized FIL using a token bridge provided by Ren Protocol.
• MetaMask’s Snaps – MetaMask Snaps are an extensible API system that let developers add new functionalities to MetaMask’s Web3 portal. MetaMask is currently working with Protocol Labs to build a Filecoin Snap, which will enable users to access a variety of Filecoin features and permissions through MetaMask.
• Infura’s Filecoin Network API – We already mentioned Infura’s groundbreaking IPFS API. Infura is now offering select users free, invite-only access to a new Filecoin API beta. This beta will provide developers with easy access to the Filecoin mainnet for building applications, apps, services, or features on top of the Filecoin network. Users can register with Infura here to sign up for access to the beta.
• Secondary Retrieval Mining – ConsenSys Software R&D and ConsenSys Mesh R&D have created an architecture and engineering plan for a Filecoin secondary retrieval market to empower users to retrieve data stored from Filecoin using a wider variety of devices, including web browsers and smartphones.
• Tachyon Launchpad Accelerator – On July 30, ConsenSys Labs began accepting applications for the Filecoin Launchpad Accelerator, powered by Tachyon. The cohort of tech startups has just completed its first week of the program and are building more interoperable tools, infrastructure, and applications for the distributed web through IPFS and Filecoin.

The new collaboration between ConsenSys Labs and Protocol Labs is bringing together the Filecoin and Ethereum ecosystems to drive the next generation of the web. With these new and upcoming features from ConsenSys’s product suite, Filecoin miners, developers, and users of the network can integrate seamlessly with the Ethereum ecosystem, and vice versa.

On October 21st, ConsenSys’s Joe Lubin joined Protocol Labs’ Juan Benet for a fireside chat about this collaboration and the future of web3, moderated by Naomi Brockwell. “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 place as one of those heavyweight protocols,” Lubin said. The session was part of this week’s Liftoff events, celebrating the launch of Filecoin. Head over to liftoff.filecoin.io to dive into all the week’s events. And learn more about this collaboration head over to the ConsenSys site.