File-Sharing Crypto Project Filecoin Reports Strong Fundamental Growth Ahead of FVM Launch

Decentralized file sharing protocol Filecoin saw a nearly sevenfold growth of data suppliers since the start of 2022, ahead of plans for a major upgrade in early 2023.

At the FIL Singapore event on Monday, attended by CoinDesk, Colin Evran, co-lead at Filecoin development lab Protocol Labs, said the network’s storage providers were increasing at a rate of 20% each month, with most activity in North America, Korea and Hong Kong. Evran said that some 7,000 new developers were currently building applications on the Filecoin blockchain.

Filecoin (FIL) is a cryptocurrency that enables users to buy and sell computer storage on a system for decentralized storage of data and files. The latter is said to help support a truly decentralized ecosystem, where blockchain data itself is stored on networks such as Filecoin, instead of centralized providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Some crypto analysts have wondered aloud whether the growth is sustainable.

Protocol Labs founder Juan Benet said some 20,000 individual users were currently using Filecoin to store over 50 million data objects, all of which are used to run decentralized applications (dapps). A data object is a storage term that denotes a value or group of values that help any system to operate.

Such reported growth comes ahead of the launch of the Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM), slated for an early 2023 release. FVM is a software platform, or “virtual computer,” that would be used by developers to create decentralized applications based on the Filecoin network.

Protocol Labs head of development Molly Mackinley said a testnet, or a testing blockchain that mimics real-world usage, was due for a November 28 launch. Mackinley added that prototypes for layer 2 – or individual blockchains that run atop the main blockchain – were already in initial testing phases and would allow for a more scalable Filecoin network after launch.

FIL has a market capitalization of over $1.6 billion as of Monday morning and is up a nominal 1.1% in the past 24 hours.