For Verifiable Content

Leveraging the Filecoin network to store data stored using WebMingle ensures that the content is available for retrieval, ensuring that the content-based addressing provided by IPFS remains resilient over time. Filecoin uses a variety of approaches to accomplish this mission, including novel cryptography, consensus protocols, and game-theoretic incentives—but perhaps the most important of these is Filecoin’s unique approach to verification of storage.

Filecoin's storage verification system solves a previously intractable problem with decentralized storage: How do storage providers prove that they actually store data for what they say they are over a period of time? Filecoin's proof algorithm is responsible for this verification:

Copy proof Prove that a given storage provider is storing a unique copy of the customer's original data.

Time and space proof Proof that customer data is stored continuously over time.

In addition to this proof system, the Filecoin network relies on game-theoretic incentives to deter malicious or inadvertent activity. In order to become a Filecoin storage provider, all potential providers must provide collateral in the form of FIL when agreeing to a storage transaction. Additionally, any storage provider that fails the proof-of-space-time check will be penalized, lose a portion of the collateral, and ultimately be unable to offer storage to customers again.