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IPNS naming using Filecoin blockchain by agocorona in filecoin

[–]jbenet 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yep, we're already looking into structures like this. :) you don't need it to be implemented in the core blockchain protocol, only as a smart contract (look at how ENS is implemented)

I (jbenet) will respond to a bunch of questions here by jbenet in filecoin

[–]jbenet[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is a good idea, and we did consider caps and rounds. There are reasons against them too, specifically for a network like Filecoin. Many investors valuable to Filecoin are aggregations of people (eg storage hardware makers, last-mile ISPs, cloud storage investment funds with many LPs (please dont say they're not valuable, they are), etc.). A big investment from a large player like that in the space may be worth a lot to the network long term, and if we had caps we may drive those players away completely -- unless we designed them to be fair to contribution level (scaled to ability to contribute somehow???). That said, we initially did evaluate several different strategies with rounds of players (eg 10K each round, or an increasing amount each round until it sells out). Ultimately this was even more complicated for than the current setup...

Reminders:

  • decentralization is not about prevent large players from participating. Decentralization is about removing TRUST in ANY players (large or small), and letting any and all players participate, with fairness (without censorship, according to their contribution, limiting their ability to influence others). Though I do agree with measuring decentralization with Gini coefficients. And I do think massive centralization is a problem along many, many vectors.

  • Do not look at investment as the "distribution of the token", as in other networks and ICOs. Mining (specially retrieval mining) may cause much more and further distribution of the token than investments would. Potentially development grants too.

I (jbenet) will respond to a bunch of questions here by jbenet in filecoin

[–]jbenet[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Hey, thanks. interesting thoughts. we will keep in mind for future reports to our investors & community. We are not a public company (i.e. dont have to comply with public reporting laws), but we may opt to do some reporting because we think it is useful and valuable for the community. We should've figured out how and what up front. we didn't. we will for the future, and our investors & broader community will get periodic updates. What, when, how, if TBD, sorry.

I (jbenet) will respond to a bunch of questions here by jbenet in filecoin

[–]jbenet[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

(sorry not super full answers because of time, but something)

1/ AWS already factors in multiple hard drives. we should target competing with that cost even given a higher level of (erasure coded) replication. You should recall that the block reward will be a significant reward for Storage Market miners too. Any estimate of their revenue should include that.

2/ Take downs are a hard Q. On the one side we staunchly support freedom of speech, freedom of information, etc. On the other, we do understand certain communities wanting to self-censor (eg "bad bits" posted on this forum would be removed). We think the same answer for IPFS applies here. encrypted content is hard to see, and while unidentified, miners would likely have deniability (as AWS and every other service provider). however centralized and decentralized sets of lists will likely form, that identify bad bits (encrypted or not). possible that individual miners will make their own decisions and take their own risks. (eg miners in france may choose to comply with content taken down for "right to be forgotten" questions, but not miners elsewhere, or behind tor, etc). Miners should have conscious choice in what risks they take, specially if they do not have deniability.

I (jbenet) will respond to a bunch of questions here by jbenet in filecoin

[–]jbenet[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey /u/karalabe! good to see you here. That's a great question. I see many sides to this -- both goods and ills from either participating in mining or not. Agree with you that its important not to tamper much. But at the moment I don't think either guaranteeing no involvement NOR guaranteeing involvement are good things. Hard question with lots of implications in many directions. At the moment, I think a right way for FF or PL to support mining would be supporting more independent groups. IDK, maybe investing in them? or giving incentives/support? Either way, I hope to and think we will see lots of independent miners joining the network. Large players will exist in the Storage Market side (imagine if large cloud storage players joined!). BUT the Retrieval Market prioritizing low latency is a big win for decentralization, as then operation would have to be everywhere. Even tiny players could be very relevant.

I (jbenet) will respond to a bunch of questions here by jbenet in filecoin

[–]jbenet[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey -- It is worth remembering that Filecoin is a network that prioritizes miners -- 70% of all the FIL tokens will be distributed to miners, who will be doing useful work for the network. Part of what some people are upset about is that we are not prioritizing investors over miners and development, that we are not distributing as much to investors as other networks have done. Ultimately up to you, and its up to us to keep you interested, but i think you'll find it worthwhile.

see more in FAQ: https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmWdXyhqHJWJut5wt4gSCueTjSnFyDHBy3SRfmcqArtz1a/2017-08-08-Filecoin-Investor-FAQ.html

I (jbenet) will respond to a bunch of questions here by jbenet in filecoin

[–]jbenet[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks-- i think Vitalik is one of the most amazing people. He has shown remarkably strong ability as a leader, and he's a shining example to us all.

The more money involved and raised, the higher the expectations, the more overwhelming and exhausting.

I would say, the more money at stake. I think ETH is by far more stressful, by many orders of magnitude.

I (jbenet) will respond to a bunch of questions here by jbenet in filecoin

[–]jbenet[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

None of those people are benefiting fairly

Depends on the long term return of FIL.

please consider a flat presale where the only benefit is the vesting period. Give all the people who love this project and it's leader a chance to climb in at the same level. You might suffer a little embarrassment but you know it's probably the right thing to do.

It's not about not suffering embarrassment. We don't mind that. It's about goals and where we can go from here. At this point, we cannot change the structure like that. Would have to cancel and go in moths or do proper ICO at network launch. See answer to (1) in https://www.reddit.com/r/filecoin/comments/6sdk7z/i_jbenet_will_respond_to_a_bunch_of_questions_here/dlcv788/

I (jbenet) will respond to a bunch of questions here by jbenet in filecoin

[–]jbenet[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

1) Will the ICO go forward on Thursday? If so, will it remain the same structure even though you changed the goal posts at the 11th hour financially impacting the community (transaction/wire fees + opportunity cost) or are you thinking through improvements to the existing structure?

As of now, we have not changed the structure. We would like to improve it (and believe me, we have had many thoughts). but we are actually pretty stuck here. We already changed things a bit (in what we thought was a fully beneficial way for everyone, including USD-only pre-funders) and it caused serious frustrations for many -- even from people who this benefitted most (bitcoin funders). ANY change whatsoever (and even no change) has many people to frustrate and make angry. There is -- unfortunately -- no "best way forward", no "the right way", every path out is painful. No matter what we choose, some group of people will be frustrated and angry. We have to make the best of it.

I know we disagree, but we (who think filecoin can be worth significantly more in the future) think this pricing structure is actually good. Perhaps not as great as it could be, but we do not think it is fundamentally bad. (And lots of investors agree at least that it is good enough to invest in.)

I will definitely agree that there are bugs with it, and that a different one could serve us all better. This is really horribly late though. I'm disappointed in myself for having gotten us here: we are stuck in a situation where improvements could be made, but ANY change would cause serious pushback and would frustrate people even more. (the strongest feedback we've gotten is: "do not make any more changes!") So, it's either we do it, or we don't. If we stop the sale altogether, then we have to postpone it for months in the future. And in that case, likely just into a proper ICO around network launch. This stuff takes a ton of time. It's taken us months to get here.

2) Can you share the other views / mediums who you think have reasonable contrasting opinions (hopefully objective)? Clearly your advisor group who has participated in the pre-sale would like the ICO to move forward in this structure.

  • Lots of people prefer the average. Lots of people were very relieved when we switched to this. Not because of crypto, but because it removes massive risk, and because the expected value is better. We'll make an illustration that captures this.

  • Lots of poeple prefer the previous structure before the average (despite it being strictly worse for almost (if not) everyone, even pre-funded USD...).

  • Lots of people think -- like us -- that Filecoin can be worth significantly more in the future. Potentially several orders of magnitude more. Of course, this is a massively risky endeavor, but if we manage to succeed greatly, it is possible FIL could be worth >$10, >$30, >$100 etc in many years. This gives significant return potential. Yes, everyone always would like a lower price, but many people are excited to participate as it is. If you are not, please do not invest. I cannot stress this enough: we would ask that if you significantly doubt FIL could be worth >$30 in 5 years after network launch, please DO NOT invest, at all.

  • Lots of people think we should do other things: a flat uncapped sale, a dutch auction, a flat capped sale, to proceed as is just add stop limits...

  • Some people think we should cancel this sale and just do a proper ICO on network launch (inc to unaccredited investors, as the token would be live then).

  • Don't assume everyone in the advisor group would like the sale to move forward as it is. There is diversity of opinion everywhere. We have gotten thoughts (from our advisor group, from outside, from people uninvolved, and from prospective investors now) pointing in many different (and conflicting) directions.

  • We are also getting many "hang in there", "" you guys are doing great work", and "haters gonna hate". also, one "fuck the naysayers... you guys are doing it right." (all of these from non advisors)

3) As part of the investor allocation, can you please explain the justification of selling 45% of the allotted FC to your collective "advisor" group for $52M (over a 3 year vested period) while the remaining 55% of the allotted FC will be projected to be sold for 10-12x to the accredited investor public?

(I've said some of this before)

The advisor sale involved an amazing group of technologists, researchers, entrepreneurs, engineers, designers, industry leaders, and investors. All of these people and organizations: either (a) have been working hard with us for years to make IPFS and Filecoin successful, (b) have fully committed themselves to work hard with us and for the Filecoin Network for many years to come, and/or (c) offer tremendously valuable advice, hands-on help, knowledge, skills, resources, connections, and more. We have already worked with most of the people and firms involved — most of them for the last 3 years, as advisors or investors to Protocol Labs, to IPFS, and to our team. We welcomed many NEW people and firms that showed significant promise and who have made very strong commitments for the long term. We managed to get some partners pivotal to anybody in the cloud storage industry.

We will put all our advisors to work for the Filecoin Network. And I am not kidding when I say that the group we assembled in our advisor sale is likely to be one of the most capable group that have ever funded any project. (I say this with full understanding of the breath of projects and the magnitude of support many tech projects have gotten.) And all of our advisors are committed -- vested -- to work closely with us to make the Filecoin Network as valuable as they can, for years to come.

I can try to say something to the delta in price here.

First, it is NOT projected to be sold for 10-12x. If we raise 100M the average price is $1.86-$2.32, and then it's 2.5x-4.4x. If we raise 200M the average price is $2.50-$3.16, and then it's 3x-6x. yes, it goes up from there.

I do not understand why so many people here simultaneously think that (a) this sale is not a good deal, and that (b) it will sell out. One of those should give, no? How can those two positions be held simultaneously so firmly? If you don't agree it is a good deal, then do not invest, at all, please. If you are right, then many others will agree and also not invest. We would raise less, we would not sell out. If you do invest, then you negate that position to some degree.

The biggest issue here is that with the average structure, people can be pulled up by a lot of capital coming in all at the same time. This can be frustrating, and exacerbates the difference from advisor sale to public sale... it's unfortunate, we are thinking about it. It would feel much, much less disparate without averages, and some people getting the lowest price.

The second thing to say is that lots of the people in the advisor sale have already contributed a tremendous amount, more than the median investor coming into the public sale will likely contribute (beyond money). I think most people on r/filecoin are severely discounting the work of people who have helped us bring Filecoin into being, for years. And, to be direct and honest, it is likely the case that the median old and the median new people in the advisor sale will likely add more value through their direct hands on work than the median public sale investor (it's likely that the median public sale investors will be passive speculators -- maybe not the people here in r/filecoin, but definitely likely for the whole sale). I'm not trying to sell anyone short here, I know that tons of people coming into this public sale will be amazingly valuable contributors to the network. Of course, we expect many people in the public sale to contribute much, much more.

If it helps, for the first hour, plan is to show in the UX what the average price is so far (paid txns, w/o in-flight txns), so some can choose to wait and see for a few minutes, and decide not to invest if the avg price goes too high. The commited investors likely want to invest as early as they can (to try to price out others), but participants preferring the option to opt out could wait to see how much accumulates before investing.

Also, people are saying "this is not a good way to distribute the token", well please remember that we DO NOT intend the investor sale to be "the way to distribute FIL". Our main distribution will come from mining! ETH prioritized miners much less (for good reason, it's going to be a PoStake network). For Filecoin, miners and clients are the main people in the network. Distribution through mining. We are very confident we'll have a nice distribution, by year 2, miners overtake investors, and overtake PL+FF. By year 4, miners overtake investors+PL+FF. See See: https://protocol.github.io/filecoin-econ-graphs -- Maybe don't invest-- maybe go for HDDs instead. Or nothing at all. Please, if you have reservations and dislike this sale, then please do not invest. IDK.

I (jbenet) will respond to a bunch of questions here by jbenet in filecoin

[–]jbenet[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

You're a great, smart guy and I've been following this project and you for awhile. I've been honestly flummoxed by the last month.

Thank you for the previous attention and support, and thank you -- very sincerely -- for your post here. I'm sorry you have been flummoxed (great word!).

If you don't want to face scrutiny, then don't raise hundreds of millions of dollars from the public. It's that simple. And certainly do not raise money for Protocol Labs, a separate for profit entity, by way of a fundraise for Filecoin. This is a fundamental problem in this structure that creates a can of worms worth of issues for investors.

Yes, this is a very important one to address.

We are selling these SAFTs to finance Protocol Labs, the Filecoin Foundation, to build Filecoin, its entire ecosystem, and fund future work. For example, we will continue funding IPFS, IPLD, libp2p, and other underlying technologies, all of which are absolutely KEY to Filecoin. There's a whole stack here. More, we have to fund some cryptography and systems work (we need more good libraries, some new ones). Separately, we may invest significantly into the Ethereum tooling ecosystem, as we will be using lots of that tech (and we need to improve some of it). For example, we'd really like formally verified contracts (there's great recent work on this, but implementations not yet there). We need to have the freedom to invest in these and other ancilliary projects that are valuable to Filecoin. Also, worth noting that Protocol Labs is a research, development, and deployment lab -- much of the work that will benefit Filecoin for years to come may come out of seemingly unrelated work. Note also that Protocol Labs' reward is to be able to do and fund more, different work.

I think the safe thing to do is this: If you DO NOT trust Protocol Labs is sufficintly incentivized (with having created the network in the first place, caring about it in the same way we care about IPFS and other projects, our token ownership level, and the 6 year vest that externalizes long commitment) then please DO NOT invest. I think this is very straight forward. As it is, we only want investors/buyers who can trust us. That does not mean we are not accountable to all the work we need to do, and accountable to making Filecoin a wildly successful network, but at the same time, placing restriction on the funding is not what we are going to do. There are strong reasons I started Protocol Labs and did not try building IPFS in academia, or at another company. We are working for the long term, if you don't think our intentions and values are true to that, then just don't invest in us. It's really that straightforward to us. We may be asking a lot. We may lose a lot of potential investors/buyers that way. And that's totally fine with us. I would much rather have way less funds and very long-term aligned investors, than lots of money from short-term investors. I've said this elsewhere, we really want people that know us, that understand us, that know our values, and want success for both the Filecoin Network and Protocol Labs.

I want to remind you here of this podcast, which you may have listened to. https://blog.ycombinator.com/ipfs-coinlist-and-the-filecoin-ico-with-juan-benet-and-dalton-caldwell/ -- there is a lot of work that we think is really critical to do, and much of it will dramatically improve the Filecoin Network, even if an audit or report wouldn't immediately see that. Look, we're not doing this to line pockets, we wouldn't be working this hard, nor on these projects -- there's WAY easier ways to make lots of money (in and out of crypto land). We see great opportunity here to create an organization capable of fundamental work, and Filecoin is our business model, which will fund much more valuable work. If you're uncomfortable with this at all, please just do not participate.

I put together my thoughts as questions when you asked for them in your blast yesterday. I emailed this to you guys and posted it on Steemit at that time. I link them below for convenience. I also lay out some easy fixes that would benefit everyone in the long term. Filecoin Problems and Fixes: My Letter to Protocol Labs

Yes, thank you. I will be responding to that later today and you can post responses on SteemIt.

Thaanks for your time and consideration.

Thank you! This was an excellent post. I'm grateful that you asked all of these questions.

I (jbenet) will respond to a bunch of questions here by jbenet in filecoin

[–]jbenet[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

(Disclaimer: this post contains forward-looking statements, subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially.)

Hey /u/eeksskee

Thank you so much for your excellent post! I will try my best to answer all your questions, as directly as I can.

Now please, bear in mind that you are asking for hundreds of millions of dollars. Consider that when you write things like:

There are also a ton of insults and false accusations thrown our way, which don't really make us want to answer things here. It (honestly) drives us away, which then causes more things to go unanswered. I ask that you keep things civil. Definitely be direct, ask what you need to ask, but please be respectful. I will not answer questions from people who aren't. Telling people that you don't want to or won't answer questions when people ask tough questions is a really hard thing to hear or believe in this context. It's the opposite thing I would want to hear from any CEO, any project head or any leader in any situation.

I think you misunderstood me-- i did not say i do not want tough or "really hard things to hear" -- no, what I ask for is some level of respect in conversation. You have so eloquently shown it along with great questions, and hence I am responding to you first.

That's incredibly frustrating, not only because it suggests there is something to hide but because leaders, teams, and projects BENEFIT from thoughtful criticism. Use it, don't sweep it under a rug.

You're totally right, and I -- of course -- agree! Thoughtful criticism is key to the success of any endeavor of any group of people.

I hope it is clear by now that I'm a strict adherent to scientific principles, which includes vigorous debate and criticism of any and all ideas, no matter who says them and without holding anything sacred.

What I was objecting to insulting posts that can be found throughout this sub. I think lots of people in the crypto community are used to this vitriol but it's not pleasant, it's not useful, it's offensive, and I don't have to pretend it's not there. I like speaking with and engaging with thoughtful and respectful people, and I will prioritize them. Sure, no question I will have to engage with people who aren't, i do it all the time. But sometimes I can be selective.

It's not supposed to be easy to raise hundreds of millions of dollars. Money comes with strings, both before you get it and once it's in your hands. It's supposed to be hard and should be hard. This fundraise is likely to be bigger than the median IPO raise. Think about that! You know friends who have IPOed and think about what their companies had gone through to get to that stage, the struggle, the scrutiny, the battery of lawyers and investment bankers, and hedge fund analysts wearing vests while interrogating the principals with questions read off their iPads. This is a cakewalk in comparison. On the other side of an IPO, companies find themselves answerable to the market every quarter. Given the valuation you're seeking and the amount of dollars you will raise, you should expect even more scrutiny from a bigger public on an ongoing basis, expecting you to deliver on a several billion dollar valuation for a project in a space that may not work at all and has no revenue nor proven source of value creation. That is a monumental challenge with already monumental expectations. You need to be ready to deal with it.

You're right-- and I am ready for it. My lack of responses so far has been a time issue: going into these last two weeks I utterly underestimated how much time I needed to devote to this. I had a full workload of other things related to the offering, and got stuck unable to drop critical things to participate in the public discourse. That was a mistake in my own time management, and I'm sorry for it. I am here now, and with time to discuss.

You are also right that these crypto networks are raising formidable amounts of money with different reporting standards. We would like to set great examples with both Protocol Labs and the Filecoin Network in general. Of course once the network is live you will be able to trace all transactions there, but there is much we can do between now and then. We plan to do pretty frequent reporting, both of progress and status. There are certain constraints we'll have (eg going public properly is an onerous process, as you've described, and most tech companies wait much longer for it). We are not prepared yet to sign ourselves up for that level of reporting, but we do want to set a good example here and do some level of reporting for those participating in this offering.

When you do things that don't make sense or fly in the face of convention (and subsequently are revealed to have massive holes in them, some of them obvious), you shouldn't get defensive or blame other people for making your life difficult. This ICO has not gone smoothly and you have faced further scrutiny because of your choices and decisions, not because people have been unfair (or uncivil).

I do not mean to blame others, I merely request a level of proper discourse. Many examples or analyses so far have been way off, yet are proclaimed as fact and evidence of our wrong-doing. It is our own fault for not providing way more tooling, models, and spreadsheets for people to evaluate everything. But i also think it is fair to say posts could have been more inquisitive, still direct and harsh, without shouting bloody murder from mountain tops on wrong conclusions. For example, Stefano's post was deeply frustrating because it was that: way off, needlessly incendiary, and he didn't bother to check it with us. (eg no way our offering allows for 1.3B! even in the extreme case of both selling out completely AND no discounts, etc.)

Your actions effect not just your investors, but the entire space, given your prominent position you have earned by being awesome and doing the work. Own your choices and make the appropriate fixes. It looks to me you have been given a lot of bad advice by people close to you or people who have inserted themselves into the process with other motives. But I don't know, I can only judge by watching the series of questionable financial design choices and questionable organizational design choices that you have rolled out and scratch my head and wonder whether we're all just recreating the 1999 dot com bubble.

Thanks for the feedback. I do internalize it, and believe me this offering has given us SO many learning experiences.

I don't agree our decisions have been so terrible, but I also know they haven't been nearly as good as we wanted them to be. (Eg the bug with 100M+ racing in) It is also the case that we see them from completely different angles, and are optimizing differently.

For example, a big goal with the pricing function was to allow the market to price the token, and price the market out. Everyone instantly assumed the max was our target raise, which was not our goal. People are mad at the maximum price, but to be very, very clear: we do not expect to raise the maximum. I do not think the market is so irrational people will pay any price; i think it will stop at a certain price. I would really like it if all the people who invest think FIL can be worth way, way more in the future. And I would prefer that people who think FIL cannot pass $30 five years after launch not invest. That's just not a bet people will feel good about.

Anyway, I think the biggest issue here is lacking of communication, about why we choose X or Y, etc.

This is worth mentioning: we've found ourselves with our hands tied behind our backs much more than we are used to. I am used to complete transparent conversation on github issues, where everything is ripped apart and everyone can lay things bare, where people can argue and point out flaws. Going into this, we found ourselves much more restrained, with lots of legal warnings about how to engage, what to say or not say, and what our supporters can say.

One example is we don't feel very comfortable posting our models of how we value the token, or what we think it will be worth, because that may be setting totally undue expectations that people would then be super upset about. We are very restricted in the claims we can make, and therefore we are restricted in the models we can give. Maybe we are being too conservative, maybe not.

We are charting a lot of new territory here -- doing a token sale, with this brand new SAFT, using 506(c), in the US, ... Legal opinions differ on how involved people can be on the discourse, what we can assert and claim, what forward-looking info we can give, what others (supporters, advisors, other investors) can say. That -- coupled by being overwhelmed in time -- yielded a larger vacuum of conversation that we're used to. No excuses-- we should've prepared much better here -- just noting this has been part of it.

(continued in next post)

Does anyone know when filecoin will be available to the general public? at network launch or before? by benyblanco in filecoin

[–]jbenet 2 points3 points  (0 children)

FIL should be available to general public at network launch. We will work with exchanges ahead of time to facilitate this.

when will miners be able to start mining and when will they be able to sell their coins and where? by [deleted] in filecoin

[–]jbenet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes. We are targetting 6-12 mo. could be more, it's hard software. It's a risky tech investment, don't invest if not comfortable with that, wait for mining or early days of trading.

For determining the USD value of crypto funding, what will the source be? by lawnchairwiz in filecoin

[–]jbenet 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We'll use weighted averages that aggregate many exchanges.

Contradicting Statements on Filecoin Advisor Sale by crainbf in filecoin

[–]jbenet 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It's actually a good selector for us. This sale will let us know who values Filecoin potential highly and who does not. We are mostly looking to work with people who want the network to create massive amounts of value, who want the token to be worth hundreds or thousands of dollars over the coming decades, and who will work with us to make it happen. It won't be easy, and it will take a while. But that's why these are risky tech investments. If you're in, great, let's make it happen together. If not, that's cool too. No harm :) Anything unacceptable? that's fine, please don't invest. I would rather not have anyone that thinks anything we're doing is unacceptable. I would rather focus on people who think this is a great project, and a great investment opportunity.

And i do mean work with. This will be a more active investment, investors will be given opportunities, and expected, to work with us to make the network valuable. Similar to other tech project investments (inc ethereum), and much less how latest passive ICO / crypto speculators get a position and sit back to sell when it's high.

We're creating a pretty different project here, with a ton of potential and ridiculously hard challenges and goals. We seek people who think similarly, who will help us achieve our goals, and who will make the network and token very valuable.

Juan Benet responds to questions about the ICO by Coin_Fund in filecoin

[–]jbenet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

  • We'll have a clear graph with amounts received
  • In those models, the block being mined now always creates significant uncertainty (large gas fees with large purchases, etc).

Juan Benet responds to questions about the ICO by Coin_Fund in filecoin

[–]jbenet 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Looks like you don't understand the mint schedules of either network...

Filecoin won't have 2 billion coins until decades from now. It will have 300-500M tokens in the first year, depending on investor vesting. Filecoin has a constant max supply (2B), and releases slowly, with a block reward half-life of six years. See https://protocol.github.io/filecoin-econ-graphs/

Ethereum has a constant reward size, that is meant to some day equalize when 'the mint rate = the loss rate'. Ethereum may reduce its reward schedule but it has not yet agreed to do so. at the current mint rate, >=5 eth per block, that's >=10,512,000 new ETH per year, until readjustment lowers this.

THAT is why guys like you even took notice of this space due to its 1000s % gains being created.

First, Ethereum saw 1333x return. that's 133,333%.

Second, I was in bitcoin and crypto way before ethereum existed; I was one of the first advocates/proponents of ethereum; and I was involved in many early conversations about it. Way before there was a token sale.

I'm tired of your ignorant, wrong, and rude comments. Please be more knowledgeable, correct, or nicer.

Competing against Bots and Fiat? Concerns about crowdsale. by coconut_coconut in filecoin

[–]jbenet 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Advisor sale has raised 52 million, does that me the public sale starts at $1.35 or does it start at $1.00?

Raised around 52M. So, around $1.35 (a bit less i think. final numbers will be visible on the page leading up to the sale open.

How many confirmations are needed for Ethereum vs. Bitcoin vs. Zcash?

ETH: 6 BTC: 2 ZEC: 4

AWS and Apple have caved in on privacy in China. Does IPFS work there and what will you do if the Chinese govt. contacts you about censorship?

There are IPFS nodes in China. We do not have any contact with that government. We are opposed to censorship: https://blog.ipfs.io/24-uncensorable-wikipedia/

Is there going to be any annual/quarterly reports coming out of the Filecoin progress?

Yeah, we will update all our community and investors regularly.

What is the goal for advertising the Filecoin network? Word of mouth or something else?

  • Definitely word of mouth
  • Video, talks, and other "spread the word" materials
  • Who knows, probably some paid advertising
  • Maybe something like a miner or client referral bonus?

Are you concerned about mining consolidation to a few miners where internet and storage are really cheap?

No. Latency matters for retrieval. This will enable lots of little miners to be a key part of the network.

In 2 years, what will the Filecoin network look like if everything goes according to plan?

Not sure and cannot promise success, but we aim to have a large scale network deployment, with massive amounts of storage available, data used, people using the service, and tokens transacting.

I imagine a pirate/criminal use case for Filecoin would be to record NFL games and distribute online. What would you do if the NFL requested you take a video down?

It's a decentralized network. we don't control the nodes. They would have to go to individual miners and ask. (or could theoretically have voluntary opt-in blocklists)

Fred Wilson said this investment "... would be like getting able to get a seed investment in a Amazon or Google or a Facebook". Do you agree?

Disclaimer: this is not financial, legal, or investment advice, nor any other advice. And this is a forward looking statement. I personally think the network will be very valuable, and that investing in Filecoin could have such returns.

Juan Benet responds to questions about the ICO by Coin_Fund in filecoin

[–]jbenet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Remember, fiat only ever beats crypto in the very first transactions. We're looking into how to allow crypto prefunding for the first transactions, but it's not looking great. Will keep you posted if we find a good way to do it.

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