Filecoin is changing the game in the world of business opportunities. The new kid on the block has its eyes set on revolutionizing data storage and transfer, by rewarding users for their participation. 

Despite being less well known than Sia and Storj, Filecoin became one of the most successful ICOs ever, with an initial investment of tens of millions of dollars. It did this by introducing an innovative system that allows for the decentralization of data storage—something that no other project had been able to achieve in a scalable way before.

In that context, the latest developments in blockchain technology could certainly create some incredible opportunities for businesses with file storage needs. These opportunities could easily turn into successes when we understand the process of buying Filecoin. Understanding these opportunities and how we as investors should deal with them will be vital to achieving our financial goals.

Filecoin History

Filecoin was founded by Protocol Labs Inc., which has also developed the IPFS,  a peer-to-peer protocol for linking data on multiple computers across the Internet, making it difficult for hackers or other individuals to destroy or corrupt data. IPFS also makes it possible for users to download only the parts of files they need, rather than downloading entire files.

The company has raised more than $200 million from investors including Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz. Investors have also included Polychain Capital, Union Square Ventures, Winklevoss Capital Management, and Digital Currency Group. Now, let’s get down to the business opportunities that Filecoin provides for its investors. 

5 Business Opportunities With Filecoin

Decentralized Cloud Storage

The main use case for Filecoin is storing files securely and anonymously on its decentralized network. This can be used by companies that want to store their data on an outside server instead of using their own servers or cloud services like AWS or Google Cloud Storage. 

This also reduces costs as there is no monthly fee for using Filecoin’s services so companies can save money by using this platform instead of paying for expensive cloud storage services that charge fees every month for using their service.

Options For Client-Miner Matching

Those seeking storage (clients) and those supplying storage (providers) on both ends of the Filecoin marketplace require an easy and effective way to discover each other (miners). The network is already seeing an increase in storage providers and notaries, who are driving more customers to Filecoin by providing reliable data storage services.

More applications to optimize the UX of client-miner matching will develop as the number of clients and miners on Filecoin grows. Filecoin will power deal matching platforms (like Airbnb) that make it simple for individuals with storage to connect with those who need it. Also, it will be common for applications to index and collect reputations, because customers will care more and more about a miner’s reputation when choosing who to trust to store their information.

Services In Finance And Data

Providing liquidity, managing risk, and minimizing uncertainty have always been in demand for financial instruments throughout history. Financial services aimed at hedging token volatility risk for clients and miners, both of which require FIL, will benefit the Filecoin ecosystem. The services that grow around these Filecoin players to decrease risk and assure liquidity will also have access to extensive datasets on FIL and Filecoin tokens, opening up a secondary market for data services.

Storage And Compute Intersection

There are a lot of computational resources and storage services accessible on the Filecoin network. The Filecoin community has begun to develop commercial opportunities at the confluence of storage and computing (the co-location of the two). 

Miners are already providing GPUs and SNARKs as a service, leveraging their processing resources. Another potential commercial use case is analytics, which allows Filecoin’s computational capabilities to collect and evaluate activities on the storage side of the network.

Dataverse As A Web Opportunity

Ownership, transparency, privacy, standards, governance, composability, and new business models are all key components of Web3. With the development of Defi (years of composability leading up to the 2020 Defi summer) and NFTs, we’ve seen these fundamentals at work (strong standards and ownership leading to the 2020 boom).

A solid data supply chain, a missing component of Web3, is now possible thanks to Filecoin. The Dataverse is a Web3 ecosystem in which each stage of the lifespan of a piece of data is stored permissionless, verifiably, and securely.

Final Thoughts

The bottom line is that Filecoin’s ICO will likely offer you plenty of business opportunities and if you are a smart investor, this could be a chance to make a sizable profit. Filecoin is a very promising concept that could bring much-needed transformation to the file hosting sector. 

There are few businesses out there that offer reliable, fast hosting solutions with terabytes of space as well as some of the lowest prices on the market. This is one domain in which Filecoin has what it takes to prove itself as a respectable alternative. The future is coming, and Filecoin wants to be one of its driving forces.