Filecoin Improvement Proposals

Filecoin Improvement Protocol

The Filecoin Improvement Protocol contains the set of fundamental governing principles for the Filecoin Network. It outlines the vision for Filecoin and the principles, processes, and parties involved in making decisions that affect the future of the network. It also describes how improvements to these rules can be proposed and ratified.

The Filecoin Vision

Filecoin is a peer-to-peer network that stores files, with built-in economic incentives to ensure that files are stored reliably over time. Its mission is to create a decentralized, efficient and robust foundation for humanity’s information. To advance that mission, Filecoin has created a decentralized storage network that lets anyone in the world store or retrieve files.

In Filecoin, users pay to store their files on storage miners. Storage miners are computers responsible for storing files and proving they have stored the files correctly over time. Anyone who wants to store their files or get paid for storing other users’ files can join Filecoin. Available storage and pricing are not controlled by any single entity. Instead, Filecoin facilitates open markets for storing and retrieving files that anyone can participate in, thereby providing storage to billions of people who are currently locked out of the web.

Filecoin Design Principles

The design of Filecoin is intended to follow a set of principles. The community will help define these principles in the coming months.

Filecoin Improvement Principles

When making decisions about how to improve Filecoin, we will follow a set of principles. The community will help define these principles in the coming months.

Making changes to the Filecoin network

Filecoin Improvement Proposals (FIPs) are the primary mechanism by which the Filecoin community can submit, discuss, and approve changes relevant to the Filecoin network. These discussions and decisions should be guided by the governance and design principles above.

FIPs are classified into three categories:

Technical FIPs, or Filecoin Technical Proposals (FTPs) are designed to gather community feedback on technical Filecoin issues. These include changes to the Filecoin protocol, a change in block or transaction validity rules, and proposed application standards or conventions. They are then reviewed by the Filecoin community and the technical steering committee. They are normally followed by a PR to the Filecoin Specification repository to update the protocol’s spec.

Organizational FIPs, or Filecoin Organization Proposals (FOPs) allow the Filecoin community to propose, discuss, and achieve consensus on Filecoin governance. This includes procedures, guidelines, decision-making processes, and changes to FIP processes.

Recovery FIPs, or Filecoin Recovery Proposals (FRPs) are intended to provide the Filecoin community with a forum to raise, discuss, and achieve consensus on fault recovery and chain rewrites, under a very limited, clearly-defined set of criteria (ex, in the case of protocol bugs destroying network value). The community will help define this process as needed in the coming months.

A decentralized, global network

Filecoin is still in its infancy, but it has the potential to play a central role in the storage and distribution of humanity’s information. To help the network grow and evolve, it is critical for the community to collectively be engaged in proposing, discussing, and implementing changes that improve the network and its operations.

This improvement protocol helps achieve that objective for all members of the Filecoin community (developers, miners, clients, token holders, ecosystem partners, and more).

FIPs

NumberTitleAuthorStatus
0018 New miner terminology proposal Stefaan-V Last Call
0017 Three-messages Lightweight Sector updates nicola, lucaniz, irenegia Draft
0016 Pack arbitrary data in CC sectors donghengzhao Draft
0015 Revert FIP-0009 (Exempt Window PoSts from BaseFee burn) jennijuju, arajasek Accepted
0014 Allow V1 proof sectors to be extended up to a maximum of 540 days deltazxm, Neo Ge, Fatman13 Accepted
0013 Add ProveCommitSectorAggregated method to reduce on-chain congestion Anca, Nicola, Zenground0, nemo, nikkolasg, jbenet, zixuanzh Accepted
0012 DataCap Top up for FIL+ Client Addresses DS, JV, ZX Accepted
0011 Remove reward auction from reporting consensus faults Jakub Sztandera Accepted
0010 Off-Chain Window PoSt Verification Steven, Alex, et al. Final
0009 Exempt Window PoSts from BaseFee burn Steven Allen, Molly Mackinlay, Łukasz Magiera, Zixuan Zhang Final
0008 Add miner batched sector pre-commit method Alex North, @ZenGround0, @nicola Final
0007 h/amt-v3 Rod Vagg, Steven Allen, Alex North, Zen Ground0 Final
0006 No repay debt requirement for DeclareFaultsRecovered Nicola, Irene Deferred
0005 Remove ineffective reward vesting Alex North, @Zenground Final
0004 Liquidity Improvement for Storage Miners davidad, jbenet, zenground0, ZX, danilo Final
0003 Filecoin Plus Principles Alex Feerst, jbenet, JV, Tim Boucher, Zargham, ZX Draft
0002 Free Faults on Newly Faulted Sectors of a Missed WindowPoSt anorth, davidad, Evan, Irene, Luca, Nicola, ZX Final
0001 FIP Purpose and Guidelines Whyrusleeping Active