Comment by wolfgang42 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wolfgang42 | Hacker News Reader

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It looks like ipfs-dropzone is running an in-browser node, which would go away as soon as you close the tab (since it's just a web page like any other). Content on IPFS stays available for as long as there's at least one node which has it and is connected to the network, so how long the link would survive for depends on whether other nodes have it and how long they will keep it for. If nothing else has downloaded the content then it will go away; on the other hand, if someone has pinned it then it will stay forever (or until they unpin it or go away).

The 30 minute interval would apply to the IPFS gateway that someone else would use to download your content (generally a standalone process though I believe there are efforts to make a browser with an embedded gateway). IPFS nodes automatically publish their cache, effectively making an autoscaling distributed CDN. However they will only cache content that they have gotten on behalf of their user; they won't go out and pull random content from the network to host it.

Man, I typed a whole reply saying basically the same thing but you beat me to it! To expand a bit further, in this demo app, the "Save" button calls an API of a pinning service (Eternum), which pins the file on an external node so it will stay there as long as it's being paid for. Right now most pinning services require that you pay them to host your file, but the plan for IPFS is to use something like Filecoin to incentivize pinning. With Filecoin, instead of paying a single service to host your content, you would put out an order to the Filecoin network which says "anyone who hosts my file gets $x per GB per second", along with some settings (e.g. I want minimum 5x copies of my file on the network). Then, anyone hosting a Filecoin node will automatically fulfill requests by hosting content in exchange for a cryptocurrency payout. So, instead of a single hosting service, you are paying the entire network to automatically host your file in many places at once.

Wait, I thought IPFS was P2P. What's this with the payment stuff?

To compare it with torrenting: The only incentives to "seed" a torrent file is usually just good will, or to build a reputation to get into invite-only sites.

We lose the latter incentive with IPFS, and so Filecoin is replaced as the new incentive to give up storage space for the P2P network.

You can still put your content up on IPFS for free, it's just that only your IPFS node will be hosting the content, and thereby won't be truly decentralized. You're the only "seeder", so to speak.

Thanks. I went to the Filecoin site to see more but it said the same has ended and to not fall for scam sites. How do I obtain filecoin? When will I be able to earn filecoin from hosting content for others?

Is hosting content the way that it is mined? Or is mining it something else?

Here’s the latest Filecoin update: https://filecoin.io/blog/update-2017-q4/

That, I'm not 100% sure about. Filecoin had their ICO, now it just needs to be implemented with IPFS.

Once implemented, you should be able to buy Filecoin from market exchanges. To earn it, Filecoin will use two "proofs-of-storage". One is "proof-of-replication" wherein your IPFS node proves to be replicating data, and "proof-of-spacetime" wherein your IPFS node proves to have stored said data for a certain amount of time.

You can read more about from their whitepaper: https://filecoin.io/filecoin.pdf

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