Filecoin Releases Incentivized Testnet Prior To Main Network Launch

Decentralized data storage network Filecoin is entering its final phase of testing with its incentivized testnet, the company said in a blog post on Wednesday.

According to the announcement, the incentivized testnet will precede the launch of the Filecoin main network, which is planned to be released later this summer. Child of Protocol Labs, the Filecoin network was behind one of the largest Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) in 2017, raising more than $257 million. The project plans to provide a storage network protected against the risk of a single point of failure, using decentralised technology.

The incentivized testnet will continue for three weeks, hosting a worldwide mining contest, and will offer a 4 million of the project’s FIL tokens as a prize fund. Considering the size of the event, the competition will provide rewards to the top 100 miners globally, as well as to the 50 top miners from each continent.

The prizes will vary depending on how much storage participants can contribute with, and on the overall size the network is able to achieve. Filecoin’s testnet will also be used to test how robust the network infrastructure really is.

Ian Darrow, Filecoin’s Head of Operations, said:

“The testnet is designed to build, educate, and reward the early community of Filecoin miners who will help prepare the entire network for a healthy, decentralized and widely distributed mainnet launch this summer.”

Though not the first trial, the incentivized testnet will be used as the last experimental stage, meant to prepare the network to store large amounts of user data, prior to the mainnet release. The project has already transitioned into a Proof-of-Replication (PoRep) consensus, and according to an April blog post, expects to launch its main network sometime between 20 July and 21 August. Though it was designed to store publicly accessible data, users who wish to store data privately can encrypt it before uploading it on the Filecoin network.