The memory chip market has a supply problem, and it is not going away anytime soon. Micron Technology said during its fiscal Q3 2026 earnings call that the supply constraints squeezing the high-bandwidth memory and DRAM markets will persist well into 2028, pushing back what the industry had hoped would be a return to balance by early 2027.
What Micron actually said AI is eating memory faster than fabs can produce it. Micron’s new fabrication facility in Idaho is not expected to reach meaningful production volumes until 2028, leaving a sizeable gap between surging AI workload demand and available chip supply.
Micron has responded to that gap by locking in long-term customer contracts, reportedly valued at around $100 billion in aggregate. The company is also reshaping its production mix, moving away from consumer-facing memory products toward chips destined for data centers and AI accelerators.
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SK Hynix, Micron’s South Korean competitor and currently the dominant supplier of HBM chips for AI accelerators, went even further. The company’s CEO forecast that 2027 could represent the worst supply shortage in the entire history of the memory semiconductor industry, with demand expected to outstrip available supply beyond 2030. Samsung has issued similar cautionary signals.
Why the crypto market is paying attention Projects like Render Network, Akash Network, Filecoin, and Arweave operate in a space broadly described as decentralized physical infrastructure networks, or DePIN. The pitch is straightforward: instead of renting compute or storage from Amazon, Google, or Microsoft, users tap into distributed networks of hardware owners who contribute spare capacity in exchange for token rewards.
If the largest hyperscalers are scrambling to secure HBM supply through 2028 and beyond, and if that scarcity translates into higher cloud pricing for GPU compute and storage, decentralized networks start looking less like an ideological choice and more like a practical hedge.
What investors should watch For equity investors, Micron’s earnings call was effectively a roadmap. The company has pricing power, long-term contract visibility, and a production ramp timed to meet demand that its own customers are already pre-paying to access. The market reaction after the earnings call reflected that reading.
SK Hynix’s dominance in HBM supply for AI chips means it captures a disproportionate share of the premium pricing that comes with constrained supply. Samsung, which has faced yield and quality challenges with its own HBM product line, is under pressure to close the gap. How quickly Samsung can do that will partly determine whether the shortage extends toward the outer bounds of SK Hynix’s 2030 projection.
The Idaho fab timeline is also worth monitoring. Micron’s acknowledgment that its newest domestic production facility will not contribute significantly until 2028 means there is a concrete date on the calendar against which the supply tightness thesis can be tested.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
A new proposal, Solstice, aims to make one of the most significant changes to Filecoin’s reward system since the network launched. It would reshape how storage providers earn rewards and how the network supports services that bring paying customers and data to Filecoin.
The basic idea is straightforward: instead of requiring providers to complete a special approval process to earn higher rewards, network consensus providers would receive full rewards automatically. At the same time, a portion of block rewards would be programmatically directed toward the services that attract customers, onboard data, and work directly with storage providers.
The Filecoin Improvement Proposal (FIP) 0118 is still a draft and is open for community feedback at: Create fip 0118-solstice.md by irenegia · Pull Request #1270 · filecoin-project/FIPs
Background on the Current System Today, Filecoin uses a program called Filecoin Plus, or Fil+. The original goal was to reward storage providers for storing useful, verified data rather than simply adding empty capacity to the network.
In practice, Fil+ has introduced a significant amount of operational overhead. To qualify for enhanced rewards, clients need to apply for datacap, which acts as a credit confirming that their data is legitimate. That process involves reviews, approvals, and compliance checks.
Over time, this has made the onboarding sectors pipeline slower and more complex. It has also created opportunities for gaming. The FIP 0118 argues that Fil+ verification has become a weak signal of useful data, so rewards do not always reach the storage providers creating the most value for the network.
Solstice builds on what Fil+ set out to do, rewarding useful storage, and replaces the verification step with a direct signal of customer activity: onchain payment volume. It supports both sides of the marketplace. Storage providers keep earning block rewards for securing and supplying storage, while a share of rewards goes to the services bringing paying customers to the network.
What Would Change The proposal introduces two major changes.
First, the Fil+ system would be removed. Every new sector onboards on equal footing, earning consensus rewards in proportion to the storage it commits, with no verified and unverified tiers. Existing sectors keep their current power and terms.
Second, a portion of Filecoin's block rewards would automatically be redirected to fund services that help drive paid network usage. Today, block rewards go entirely to the storage provider that wins the block. Under Solstice, part of that reward would instead go to a new role in the network, Service Orchestrators, who are responsible for bringing paying customers to the Filecoin network.
In simple terms, miners continue earning rewards for providing consensus and securing the storage network, while a portion of rewards would also fund the sales, service, and integration layer that brings more paying customers to the network. More demand means more value flowing to the providers already serving it.
The Opportunity for Storage Providers The timing of this proposal matters as much as the mechanics. Several forces are converging in the broader market right now, that point toward exactly the kind of infrastructure Filecoin storage providers have already built.
Data growth is outpacing centralized infrastructure. AI, enterprise, and machine-generated workloads are driving demand beyond available cloud capacity and into new geographies, while power grid constraints delay roughly one fifth of planned data center development. The same AI adoption is also shifting what buyers need from storage: verifiability, provenance, and durability, not capacity alone. Filecoin answers both. Its global network of independent providers added more than 59 PiB of raw storage in a single day, and its cryptographic proofs verify what is stored and that it stays stored.
These trends are already producing real deals. Aurora, an SP, is deploying Filecoin-powered storage across 100 megawatt AI compute data centers in Europe, built for multi-petabyte workloads. 375ai and Akave, another SP using Filecoin, with edge infrastructure across more than 40,000 retail, industrial, and logistics locations in the United States, is using Filecoin backed storage as the durability layer for its verifiable AI data pipeline.
What Solstice does is give the network, for the first time, a protocol level mechanism to reward the service layer that captures this demand. The service stream creates funding that rewards one measurable thing: bringing paying customers to Filecoin and routing their workloads to storage providers. For storage providers, that means the go-to-market work gets done by specialists at scale, keeping them focused on operating their infrastructure, and subsidized by the block reward.
For more on the macro tailwinds shaping this moment, see: Why Macro Trends Are Moving in Filecoin's Favor.
Governance Tiers and Functions Solstice introduces two new governed contracts, the Stream Weights Actor and the Service Rewards Actor, that parameterize the built-in reward actor (f02), which does the actual splitting.
Stream Weights Actor (SWA). The SWA controls how each block reward is divided among streams. At launch there are two: the consensus stream, paid to the winning miner each epoch, and the service stream, paid to registered Orchestrators. The SWA manages the weight schedule: consensus share ramps from 95% down to a 50% floor, and service share steps up from 5% in 5 percentage point increments, but only when quarterly on-chain Filecoin Pay volume clears a verifiable USD target. Whatever share leaves consensus but has not been earned by the service stream is burned. Every discretionary SWA change requires a published FIP, sign-off from both Safes operating the first decision-making surface, and a seven day hold enforced at the L1. f02 itself queues and delays the write, so no weight can shift without the community having time to see and object. Gate step-ups are mechanism-executed and not cancellable.
Service Rewards Actor (SRA). The SRA determines how the service stream is split among registered Orchestrators. Each quarter it computes each Orchestrator's share from their verified Filecoin Pay volume and writes the wallet-to-share map directly into f02, which pays each Orchestrator wallet every epoch. The SRA never holds funds and is never on the value path. It also maintains the Orchestrator registry: which entities are admitted, which (payer, operator) pairs are attributed to each Orchestrator, and which stablecoin and Filecoin Pay contract addresses count toward volume. Registry changes require both Safes operating the second decision-making surface and a cancellation hold, but no FIP.
Service Orchestrators. Orchestrators are the registered entities whose on-chain payment activity drives the service stream. Their protocol interaction is narrow: they register the (payer, operator) pairs whose Filecoin Pay volume counts toward them, post their quarterly volume figure to the SRA in stablecoin and FIL components recomputable by anyone from public settlement events, and receive their share of the service stream each epoch directly from f02. They are not a decision-making surface. At launch a single Orchestrator is registered; the second decision-making surface can admit more over time, with permissionless registration as the Phase 2 goal.
Together: f02 splits every block reward by the current weights; the SWA sets those weights and governs when the service share can grow; the SRA determines how that share is divided based on measured volume; and Orchestrators generate the client demand that justifies the funding increasing over time.
What This Means for Storage Providers Storage providers are the direct beneficiaries as Filecoin’s service economy grows. The shift Solstice makes is about accelerating the demand side of the network that makes providing storage capacity on the network highly attractive.
The most significant community-advocated change is that the Fil+ system goes away. No more datacap applications, allocator reviews, or compliance overhead. Every sector onboards on equal footing with full rewards from day one. For providers who have spent years navigating that pipeline, this alone is a meaningful operational improvement.
The bigger opportunity is what the service stream funds. As that client pipeline grows, so do the deals and direct revenue storage providers earn from serving real customers. Revenue for storage providers increases because paying customers are coming to the network.
For providers running newer storage proof systems; such as Proof of Data Possession (PDP) for hot data and retrieval workloads; Solstice removes a meaningful barrier. Service funding is not tied to any specific proof system. Whether a storage provider runs PoRep, PDP, or whatever the market demands, the incentive structure accommodates it.
At launch the service portion is 5% of each block reward, with 95% flowing directly to miners as the consensus share. Over roughly nine quarters the consensus share steps down on a published schedule toward a 50% floor, opening up more room for service funding. That room does not fill automatically: the service portion steps up only when payment volume flowing through Filecoin Pay clears a verifiable on-chain target for that quarter. When the target is met the step-up executes automatically, no governance approval required. When it is not, the service portion holds and the gap is burned, permanently removing those tokens from supply.
This means the burn rate is directly tied to revenue: as the network wins more real paying business, more of the issuance flows to service funding and less is burned. Every step up is therefore evidence that the revenue opportunity for SPs is growing alongside it, and every missed step tightens supply instead of distributing funds the network has not yet earned.
Read the full proposal at Create fip 0118-solstice.md by irenegia · Pull Request #1270 · filecoin-project/FIPs. The discussion is open until later this month. After the feedback period, the authors will incorporate community input into the draft and progress through the FIP process.
Coinbase is giving Filecoin traders a new way to take risk. By adding margin support for FIL, the exchange is not just listing another feature. It is expanding how one of crypto’s older infrastructure tokens can be traded on a major US-facing platform.
That matters because Filecoin has often sat in an awkward place. The project is tied to a real infrastructure thesis around decentralized storage, but the market frequently treats FIL as just another volatile altcoin. Margin access tends to sharpen that trading identity.
For more details, visit the official Coinbase platform.
TL;DR Coinbase is adding Filecoin margin trading support.The move gives traders more flexibility around FIL exposure.It also keeps decentralized storage assets in the conversation as exchanges expand margin markets. Why Margin Support Changes The Setup Margin trading can deepen liquidity and attract more active traders, but it also raises the stakes. When a token becomes available for leveraged positioning, price moves can become more sensitive to funding, liquidation risk, and short-term sentiment.
For Coinbase, the decision suggests there is enough demand around Filecoin to justify broader trading tools. For FIL, it offers more visibility at a time when infrastructure tokens are trying to reassert their relevance.
Filecoin’s Infrastructure Narrative The underlying Filecoin thesis is still about storage: decentralized data markets, long-term archival needs, and alternatives to centralized cloud infrastructure. That story has never been as simple or as viral as memecoins or AI tokens, but it remains one of the sector’s more concrete use cases.
The question is whether trading access can help pull attention back to that infrastructure angle or whether leverage simply turns FIL into a faster speculative instrument.
The Risk Traders Should Remember Margin support is not automatically bullish. It can attract long exposure, but it can also make shorting easier and increase liquidation-driven volatility. That means the listing is better read as a market-structure update than a directional guarantee.
Still, for an asset like Filecoin, broader access on Coinbase is meaningful. It keeps FIL in front of active traders while the decentralized storage story continues to develop in the background.
A Useful Way To Frame It The useful way to read this story is not as a standalone headline about Coinbase, but as part of the wider pressure building around Coinbase coverage this week. Markets have been jumping quickly from one catalyst to the next, so the cleaner value for readers is in separating the actual development from the instant reaction around it. In this case, the source material gives us a concrete event to work from, rather than a loose rumour or a recycled social-media talking point.
That distinction matters because crypto readers are being asked to process a lot at once: ETF flows, regulatory actions, exchange listings, protocol upgrades, wallet movements, and political signals. A story like this is most useful when it helps them understand where Filecoin fits into that broader map. It does not need to be inflated into a guaranteed price call to be worth covering. It simply needs to explain what changed, who is affected, and why the market is paying attention today.
The caveat is also important. Even clean source-backed developments can be overinterpreted when traders are hunting for a fast narrative. A listing does not automatically create lasting demand, a regulatory update does not immediately settle every legal question, and an on-chain movement does not always translate into a finished sale. The better read is to treat the development as a fresh data point and then watch whether follow-up activity confirms the direction of travel.
For NewsBTC readers, that means keeping the focus on what can actually be verified from the source and avoiding the temptation to turn every update into a sweeping market verdict. The story is strong enough on its own terms: it gives investors and traders another piece of context around Coinbase, while leaving room for the next filing, dashboard update, wallet movement, governance vote, or exchange notice to decide whether the angle grows into something bigger.
This article is based on information from Coinbase.
This article was written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.
PANews reported on January 16th that, according to SoSoValue data, the cryptocurrency market sector declined for the second consecutive day. The DePIN sector led the decline with a 4.22% drop in the past 24 hours. Within the sector, Filecoin (FIL) fell 8.55%, and Golem (GLM) fell 10.07%. Additionally, Bitcoin (BTC) fell 0.74%, dropping below $95,000, while Ethereum (ETH) remained relatively resilient, declining 0.21% and still hovering around $3,300.
In other sectors, the CeFi sector fell 0.37% in the last 24 hours, but NEXO (NEXO) rose 1.13%; the Layer 1 sector fell 1.32%, while TRON (TRX) rose 2.30% intraday; the PayFi sector fell 2.11%, while Dash (DASH) bucked the trend and rose 3.50%; the Layer 2 sector fell 2.52%, while Mantle (MNT) rose 0.99%; the DeFi sector fell 2.59%, while River (RIVER) still rose significantly by 8.12%; and the Meme sector fell 2.93%, while MemeCore (M) rose 1.65%.
A crypto rally is happening today, with Bitcoin and most altcoins being in the green.
Bitcoin (BTC) price jumped to $68,000, while the market capitalization of all coins rose by 6% to over $2.34 trillion.
Filecoin (FIL) rose by over 25% to $1.10, while Polkadot (DOT) jumped by 21%. Other tokens like Aptos (APT), Morpho (MORPHO), Uniswap (UNI), and Avalanche (AVAX) soared by over 15%.
Bitcoin and these altcoins jumped as investors embraced a risk-on sentiment across the board. For example, American stocks, including the Dow Jones, Nasdaq 100, and S&P 500, rose by 250, 260, and 35 points, respectively.
The risk-on sentiment happened as investors bought the dip as they waited for the Nvidia earnings, which will come out after the US market closes. NVIDIA is the most influential American company because of its size and role in the artificial intelligence industry.
Additionally, the tokens jumped as the futures open interest rebounded cautiously, a sign that demand is rising. Open interest rose by over 6% in the last 24 hours to $99.4 billion, much higher than this week’s low of $93 billion.
Filecoin’s open interest rose to $154 million, while Morpho soared to over $34 million. The futures open interest of other tokens like Aptos and Polkadot continued soaring.
Still, it is too early to determine whether this is the start of a new crypto bull run or whether it is just a dead-cat bounce. In the past, most crypto market rallieshave turned out to be dead-cat bounces.
A dead-cat bounce is a situation where an asset in a free-fall rebounds temporarily and then resumes the downtrend.
Bullish FIL price prediction for 2026 is $1.162 to $1.742. Filecoin (FIL) price might reach $5 soon. Bearish FIL price prediction for 2026 is $0.539. In this Filecoin (FIL) price prediction 2026, 2027-2030, we will analyze the price patterns of FIL by using accurate trader-friendly technical analysis indicators and predict the future movement of the cryptocurrency.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Filecoin (FIL) Current Market StatusWhat is Filecoin (FIL) ?Filecoin (FIL) 24H TechnicalsFILECOIN (FIL) PRICE PREDICTION 2026
Filecoin (FIL) Support and Resistance LevelsFilecoin (FIL) Price Prediction 2026 — RVOL, MA, and RSIFilecoin (FIL) Price Prediction 2026 — ADX, RVIComparison of FIL with BTC, ETHFILECOIN (FIL) PRICE PREDICTION 2027, 2028-2030CONCLUSIONFAQ Filecoin (FIL) Current Market Status Current Price $0.8053 24 – Hour Price Change 1.47% Up 24 – Hour Trading Volume $70.91M Market Cap $636.94M Circulating Supply 790.87M FIL All – Time High $237.24 (On April 01, 2021) All – Time Low $0.6336 (On Oct 11, 2025) FIL Current Market Status (Source: CoinMarketCap) What is Filecoin (FIL) TICKERFILBLOCKCHAINFilecoinCATEGORYDecentralized Storage NetworkLAUNCHED ONJuly 2014UTILITIESGovernance, security, gas fees & rewards Filecoin (FIL) is the native cryptocurrency of the Filecoin blockchain. Filecoin is an open-source, decentralized storage protocol that exists on top of the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS). Filecoin (FIL) was launched in an ICO in 2017 whereas the Filecoin mainnet went live in October 2020. Filecoin was developed by Protocol Labs.
Filecoin enables users to store any size of data on multiple hack-proof storage providers or devices. It serves as a better alternative to the existing cloud storage providers such as Dropbox, Google Drive, and Amazon S3. Filecoin deploys proof-of-replication (PoRep) and proof-of-spacetime (PoSt) consensus mechanisms to secure the blockchain.
Miners use these consensus models to verify the data that is being stored on the blockchain. They require only GPUs, CPUs, and hard drives for mining. Filecoin nodes act as storage nodes. Filecoin (FIL) is given out as mining rewards and also as rewards to users for renting out the space for storage.
Filecoin 24H Technicals Filecoin (FIL) ranks 71st on CoinMarketCap in terms of its market capitalization. The overview of the Filecoin price prediction for 2026 is explained below with a daily time frame.
FIL/USDT Horizontal Channel Pattern (Source: TradingView) In the above chart, Filecoin (FIL) laid out a Horizontal channel pattern. The Horizontal channel pattern is also known as the sideways trend. In general, the horizontal channel is formed during the price consolidation. In this pattern, the upper trendline, the line that connects the highs, and the lower trendline, the line that connects the lows, run horizontally parallel, and the price action is contained within it.
A horizontal channel is often regarded as one of the suitable patterns for timing the market, as the buying and selling points are in consolidation.
At the time of analysis, the price of Filecoin (FIL) was recorded at $0.8053. If the pattern continues, the price of FIL might reach the resistance levels of $1.167 and $1.747. If the trend reverses, then the price of FIL may fall to support level of $0.953 and $0.773.
Filecoin (FIL) Resistance and Support Levels The chart given below elucidates the possible resistance and support levels of Filecoin (FIL) in 2026.
FIL/USDT Resistance and Support Levels (Source: TradingView) From the above chart, we can analyze and identify the following as resistance and support levels of Filecoin (FIL) for 2026.
Filecoin (FIL) Price Prediction 2026 — RVOL, MA, and RSI The technical analysis indicators such as Relative Volume (RVOL), Moving Average (MA), and Relative Strength Index (RSI) of Filecoin (FIL) are shown in the chart below.
From the readings on the chart above, we can make the following inferences regarding the current Filecoin (FIL) market in 2026.
INDICATORPURPOSEREADINGINFERENCE50-Day Moving Average (50MA)Nature of the current trend by comparing the average price over 50 days50 MA = $0.902Price = $1.089
(50MA < Price)Bullish/UptrendRelative Strength Index (RSI)Magnitude of price change;Analyzing oversold & overbought conditions73.507
<30 = Oversold
50-70 = Neutral>70 = OverboughtOverboughtRelative Volume (RVOL)Asset’s trading volume in relation to its recent average volumesBelow cutoff lineWeak Volume Filecoin (FIL) Price Prediction 2026 — ADX, RVI In the below chart, we analyze the strength and volatility of Filecoin (FIL) using the following technical analysis indicators — Average Directional Index (ADX) and Relative Volatility Index (RVI).
From the readings on the chart above, we can make the following inferences regarding the price momentum of Filecoin (FIL).
INDICATORPURPOSEREADINGINFERENCEAverage Directional Index (ADX)Strength of the trend momentum19.712Weak TrendRelative Volatility Index (RVI)Volatility over a specific period73.22<50 = Low
>50 = High
High Volatility Comparison of FIL with BTC, ETH Let us now compare the price movements of Filecoin (FIL) with that of Bitcoin (BTC), and Ethereum (ETH).
BTC Vs ETH Vs FIL Price Comparison (Source: TradingView) From the above chart, we can interpret that the price action of FIL is similar to that of BTC and ETH. That is, when the price of BTC and ETH increases or decreases, the price of FIL also increases or decreases respectively.
Filecoin (FIL) Price Prediction 2026, 2027 – 2030 With the help of the aforementioned technical analysis indicators and trend patterns, let us predict the price of Filecoin (FIL) between 2026, 2027, 2027, 2028, 2029 and 2030.
Year Bullish Price Bearish PriceFilecoin (FIL) Price Prediction 2027$8$0.4Filecoin (FIL) Price Prediction 2028$10$0.3Filecoin (FIL) Price Prediction 2029$13$0.2Filecoin (FIL) Price Prediction 2030$17$0.1 Conclusion If Filecoin (FIL) establishes itself as a good investment in 2026, this year would be favorable to the cryptocurrency. In conclusion, the bullish Filecoin (FIL) price prediction for 2026 is $1.742. Comparatively, the bearish Filecoin (FIL) price prediction for 2026 is $0.539.
If there is a positive elevation in the market momentum and investors’ sentiment, then Filecoin (FIL) might hit $5. Furthermore, with future upgrades and advancements in the Filecoin ecosystem, FIL might surpass its current all-time high (ATH) of $237.24 and mark its
FAQ 1. What is Filecoin (FIL)? Filecoin (FIL) is the native cryptocurrency of the Filecoin blockchain. Filecoin is an open-source, decentralized storage protocol that exists on top of the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS).
2. Where can you buy Filecoin (FIL)? Traders can trade Filecoin (FIL) on the following cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binance, OKX, Bybit, DigiFinex, and Cointr Pro.
3. Will Filecoin (FIL) record a new ATH soon? With the ongoing developments and upgrades within the Filecoin platform, Filecoin (FIL) has a high possibility of reaching its ATH soon.
4. What is the current all-time high (ATH) of Filecoin (FIL)? Filecoin (FIL) hit its current all-time high (ATH) of $237.24 on April 01, 2021.
5. What is the lowest price of Filecoin (FIL)? According to CoinMarketCap, FIL hit its all-time low (ATL) of $0.6336 on Oct 11, 2025.
6. Will Filecoin (FIL) hit $5? If Filecoin (FIL) becomes one of the active cryptocurrencies that majorly maintain a bullish trend, it might rally to hit $5 soon.
7. What will be the Filecoin (FIL) price by 2027? Filecoin (FIL) price might reach $8 by 2027.
8. What will be the Filecoin (FIL) price by 2028? Filecoin (FIL) price might reach $10 by 2028.
9. What will be the Filecoin (FIL) price by 2029? Filecoin (FIL) price might reach $13 by 2029.
10. What will be the Filecoin (FIL) price by 2030? Filecoin (FIL) price might reach $17 by 2030.
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Disclaimer: The opinion expressed in this chart is solely the author’s. It does not represent any investment advice. TheNewsCrypto team encourages all to do their own research before investing.
Filecoin [FIL] has surged 13% to $1.05, at press time, as trading volume exploded to $314.6 million in 24 hours. This expansion aligns with the 2026 ecosystem strategy that prioritizes paid on-chain deals and stronger network economics.
The network has shifted its focus toward driving real demand rather than relying solely on capacity metrics. As a result, market capitalization has risen to about $769 million, accompanied by growing participation.
Buyers have stepped in aggressively after the recent breakdown phase. However, FIL still trades within a broader corrective environment.
The alignment between strategic narrative and capital inflows now strengthens the recovery case. Price expansion backed by $314.6 million in volume signals conviction rather than a low-liquidity bounce.
Pennant breakdown sparks rebound After breaking down from a bearish pennant formation, Filecoin extended its decline toward the $0.87 support band. Sellers pushed the price below the lower channel boundary, confirming short-term weakness.
However, bulls have reclaimed ground quickly and driven a rebound toward $1.05. This reaction suggests strong demand absorption near the highlighted support.
The price now approaches the $1.10 resistance zone, which previously acted as structural support. If buyers sustain pressure above $1.05 and reclaim the resistance zone, upside continuation toward $1.6 becomes plausible.
Still, failure to hold above $1 could invite renewed selling pressure. The rebound currently challenges the bearish continuation thesis that followed the pennant breakdown.
Source: TradingView At the time of writing, MACD readings reflected early bullish convergence as downside pressure eases on the daily timeframe.
The MACD line has crossed upward toward -0.044, while the histogram has turned positive near 0.022. These shifts suggest improving internal strength despite the broader downtrend.
Although the signal line remains below equilibrium at -0.066, buyers are gradually regaining control. This transition does not yet confirm a full reversal, but it underscores that selling intensity has weakened significantly since the pennant breakdown.
Filecoin spot buyers reclaim control The 90-day Spot Taker CVD has flipped into Taker Buy dominance as of writing, confirming sustained aggressive buying activity.
This shift reflects cumulative buy-side volume exceeding sell pressure over an extended horizon. Such positioning suggests conviction rather than short-term speculation.
Additionally, trading volume has expanded by over 200% in 24 hours, reinforcing participation strength.
Buyers now actively lift offers instead of waiting passively. This development strengthens the rebound narrative.
However, sustained dominance must continue for the price to challenge higher resistance clusters. If aggressive spot flows persist, FIL could build a stronger structural base above $1.00.
Source: CryptoQuant Liquidity clusters frame the next move The Binance liquidation heatmap shows dense leverage clusters above $1.10 and around $0.95. Notably, around 322.69K in liquidation leverage appears near the $0.98–$1.00 zone.
Overhead liquidity around $1.10–$1.14 creates a magnet for price expansion if buyers maintain pressure. At the same time, sub-$0.95 liquidity forms a downside trigger if support fails.
This structure sets up a potential squeeze dynamic. Should price break above $1.10, short liquidations could accelerate upside movement.
Conversely, rejection near resistance may expose $0.95 quickly. Liquidity positioning now defines the immediate battlefield between bulls and bears.
Source: CoinGlass Can Filecoin extend recovery? Filecoin currently challenges its breakdown narrative as strategic demand focus aligns with aggressive buying and improving technical structure.
Price has rebounded strongly from support, and indicators show weakening downside pressure. Liquidity clusters now frame the next directional move.
If buyers clear $1.10 decisively, upside continuation toward higher resistance would likely follow. For now, the rebound carries credibility, and the structure increasingly favors recovery over renewed breakdown for as long as the price doesn’t fall below $1.
Final Summary Filecoin challenged its bearish narrative as buyers defended key support and pressed toward overhead liquidity. Sustained strength above $1.00 would increasingly favor upside continuation over renewed breakdown pressure ahead.
US-listed AI chip stocks saw mixed pre-market performance, with Qualcomm surging 13%.
According to Bitget market data, U.S. AI chip stocks posted mixed pre-market performance: Qualcomm (QCOM.O) surged 13%, Intel (INTC.O) rose nearly 6%, AMD (AMD.O) gained nearly 4%, and Google (GOOG.O) declined 1.4%.
3 minutes ago
Micron Technology surges 18% in pre-market trading on US stocks
According to Bitget market data, the US stock storage sector is seeing broad pre-market gains. Micron Technology (MU.O) jumps 18% in pre-market trading, as its strong earnings significantly exceeded expectations, with multiple major banks raising the stock’s target price. SanDisk (SNDK) rises 12.25%, Western Digital (WDC) gains 12.05%, and Seagate Technology (STX) climbs 8.63%.
3 minutes ago
SBI announced it will acquire cryptocurrency trading platform Bitbank for 46.7 billion yen.
According to Nikkei News, Japanese financial group SBI Holdings announced on the 25th that it will acquire cryptocurrency exchange platform bitbank for 46.7 billion yen (approximately $288 million). Upon completion of the transaction, SBI Group’s crypto asset custody scale is expected to exceed 1 trillion yen, making it one of the largest operators in Japan’s crypto industry. Per the plan, a subsidiary under SBI Holdings will acquire Bitbank shares from individual shareholders including its founders as early as August this year. Bitbank will then repurchase shares held by existing shareholders MIXI and Ceres by the end of October. If combining data from SBI’s own crypto exchange SBI VC Trade and Bitbank, as of April this year, the two firms had a total of around 2.92 million accounts and total custody assets of approximately 1.1 trillion yen. While different crypto exchanges disclose custody assets at varying time points, among Japan’s major industry competitors, bitFlyer held about 960 billion yen in custody assets as of the end of December 2025, and Coincheck had around 800 billion yen as of the end of March 2025.
3 minutes ago
Bithumb was fined for sharing user data overseas without consent.
South Korean regulatory authorities have ordered cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb to pay a 210 million won (approximately $136,000) fine for sharing user personal information with overseas platforms without user consent. According to an announcement released Thursday by South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC), the relevant user data exposure occurred between September and November 2025. At that time, Bithumb transferred user information to overseas platforms while sharing its USDT market order book data. The PIPC also noted that when assisting users with asset transfers to 13 overseas exchanges, Bithumb failed to obtain full and sufficient user consent before sharing personal details including names, wallet addresses, and dates of birth. For the two violations, the PIPC not only imposed the fine but also ordered Bithumb to rectify its processes and management systems related to cross-border transmission of user information.
PANews reported on March 2nd, citing Business Wire, that enterprise cloud infrastructure company Akave announced the completion of a $6.65 million funding round and officially launched Akave Cloud, an S3-compatible decentralized storage product. Akave Cloud boasts a uniform price of $14.99/TB/month, zero bandwidth fees, and vendor lock-in-free operation. Running on its dedicated Avalanche Layer 1 public blockchain, Akave Cloud offers verifiable auditing, on-chain programmable access control, and long-term archiving to the Filecoin network, supporting data and AI/analysis workloads such as Snowflake and Apache Iceberg. Currently, organizations including Intuizi, LaserSETI, 375ai, and Skymapper have integrated with the platform for scenarios such as advertising data analysis, astronomical observation data storage, and AI training data management.
PLFIF is excited to announce the results of Filecoin Public Goods Funding (ProPGF) Batch 2 - General Track, with $3,220,200 allocated across 16 projects supporting critical infrastructure, developer tooling, ecosystem growth, and coordination within the Filecoin network.
Batch 2 reflects a maturing funding strategy: more selective, more capital disciplined, and strongly aligned with long-term network resilience.
🌱 About ProPGF Protocol Labs’ Filecoin Public Goods Funding (PGF) programs support projects that strengthen the Filecoin ecosystem and broader open-source infrastructure.
Funding is distributed through:
ProPGF - Prospective funding for forward-looking initiatives RetroPGF - Retroactive rewards for demonstrated impact While RetroPGF evaluates past impact, ProPGF is designed to strategically allocate capital toward future ecosystem priorities through milestone-based funding and structured review.
ProPGF runs in recurring cycles and continues to evolve as Filecoin’s capital formation layer matures.
📊 Batch 2 at a Glance 102 total applications 53 shortlisted 42 advanced to final review 16 projects funded $3,220,200 allocated The majority of grants are structured over 6 months, with select soft commitments extending toward 12 months This represents a 15.7% acceptance rate, reflecting the rigor of the review process and the competitive nature of the round.
🧮 Capital Discipline & Negotiation
Across the 16 selected projects:
Total requested: $4,632,800 Total approved: $3,220,200 Note: Batch 2 reflects a more capital-disciplined approach: of the $4.63M requested across selected proposals, $3.22M was approved. This reflects a selective funding approach - prioritizing scope clarity, milestone alignment, and long-term ecosystem impact.
The committee conducted structured negotiations across scope, milestones, and budget sizing to ensure:
Capital efficiency Alignment with ecosystem priorities Clear accountability through milestone gating Average grant size: $201,262 Median grant size: $129,000
This reflects a portfolio approach — balancing large, high-leverage infrastructure bets with smaller, targeted interventions.
🏗 Funding Allocation by Category Batch 2 demonstrates a clear prioritization of core network stability and dependencies.
Capital Distribution:
Infra & Core Dependencies: 62.4% Tooling & Developer Ecosystem: 16.1% Ecosystem Growth: 16.3% Coordination: 3.1% Integrations: 2.0% Over 60% of capital was allocated toward core infrastructure — nodes, maintenance, retrieval systems, indexing, and protocol-level dependencies — signaling strong emphasis on network robustness.
🚀 Meet the Funded Projects 🏗 Infra & Core Dependencies Filecoin Infrastructure Services by ChainSafe Team – $138,000 The project aims to increase independent operator diversity on Filecoin’s Calibnet test network by running a long-lived, production-like storage miner using Curio. Forest: Efficient and lightweight Filecoin node implementation by ChainSafe Team – $504,000 Forest is a lightweight Filecoin node implementation that makes running network infrastructure cheaper and more reliable. This grant supports its continued maintenance and protocol upgrade readiness. IPNI by IPNI Team - $288,000 IPNI is the indexing service that helps applications discover where data is stored across Filecoin and IPFS. This funding ensures it remains reliable, scalable, and sustainably operated as network usage grows. Enhancing the visibility and verifiability of Filecoin Onchain Cloud within the Filecoin ecosystem through the Filfox explorer by 6Block Team – $30,000 This project enhances the Filfox explorer to improve the visibility and verifiability of FOC, PDP, and Filecoin Pay activity, helping developers, providers, and integrators better understand and troubleshoot onchain service behavior. Curio Storage by Curio Team – $500,000 Curio Storage is building core software and infrastructure that helps Filecoin Storage Providers (SPs) deliver paid deals. This grant funds continued development of “Market 2.0” deal interfaces, plus ongoing support and calibration network stability work that operators rely on. Lotus Miner + Boost Maintenance by Storswift Team – $50,000 This project funds ongoing maintenance of Lotus Miner and Boost, two core components that many Storage Providers rely on for storage and deal operations. The work ensures these systems remain secure, upgrade-compatible, and stable. Calib Network Miner by Storswift Team – $28,000 This project adds a production-grade, independent miner to the Calibration Network to improve upgrade testing, operator diversity, and overall network resilience. Venus Maintenance by IPFS Team – $300,000 Venus maintains and upgrades the second-largest Filecoin client implementation, ensuring continued client diversity and network resilience. This grant supports four network upgrades, zero-day compatibility, and ongoing maintenance of Filscan and FIPs.cc to improve transparency and governance clarity across the ecosystem. Drand by Drand Team – $120,000 This grant funds the continued operation and maintenance of drand - the public randomness service that underpins Filecoin’s block production and network liveness. OpenModel by 6Block Team – $50,000 OpenModel is building a decentralized AI model distribution and compute infrastructure on Filecoin, enabling fast, verifiable model downloads and pay-as-you-go access using Filecoin Pay. 🛠 Tooling & Developer Ecosystem Filecoin Developer Experience & FEVM Development by FIL-B Team – $420,000 FIL-B is building and running the developer experience layer for Filecoin in 2026, partnering with the FOC pod to drive builder adoption (docs, integrations, activations) while also improving core FEVM and Filecoin DX. ProbeLab Gauge for FOC and Retrieval Testing by ProbeLab Team – $100,000 ProbeLab will build retrieval testing tooling and live dashboards to measure Filecoin’s retrieval success rate and Filecoin Onchain Cloud (FOC) performance. This provides transparent, real-time metrics and SLAs to help developers, Storage Providers, and protocol teams monitor and improve network reliability. 🌍 Ecosystem Growth Secured Finance by Secured Finance Team – $225,000 Secured Finance maintains and expands USDFC, a FIL-collateralized stablecoin designed as native financial infrastructure for Filecoin. This grant supports interoperable payment rails, improved user interfaces, and audited onchain vaults to enable stable-value transactions and capital retention within the Filecoin ecosystem. FilPonto by FILPonto Team – $300,000 FilPonto supports core Filecoin infrastructure and ecosystem coordination, sustained FOC developer contributions, and a flexible grants pool for high-impact integrations and experimentation. This grant funds advanced JS contributions to FOC, and responsive technical support across the ecosystem. 🤝 Coordination Filecoin Foundation Infrastructure & Coordination Stewardship by SEAD Team – $101,200 This project provides ongoing stewardship and governance of the Filecoin Foundation’s core coordination infrastructure, including shared systems such as Slack, Google Workspace, and GitHub. The grant ensures secure access management, clear ownership boundaries, and operational continuity across organizational lines to reduce systemic risk and support ecosystem execution. 🔗 Integrations Oku Trade by Oku Team – $66,000 Oku Trade provides Filecoin’s primary decentralized exchange interface and meta-aggregator, enabling fee-less swaps, bridging, and liquidity provision via Uniswap v3 infrastructure. This grant supports ongoing hosting and indexing to ensure reliable DEX access and liquidity flows across EVM networks into Filecoin. 📈 What Batch 2 Signals Compared to earlier cycles, Batch 2 reflects:
Stronger selectivity (16 out of 102 funded) Greater capital concentration into core infrastructure Clear negotiation discipline Emphasis on long-term network sustainability This was not a broad experimentation round. It was a stability and resilience round.
📉 For Teams Not Selected We recognize the high quality of many proposals that were not funded in this cycle.
ProPGF operates within a defined capital envelope and prioritizes strategic alignment, scope readiness, and budget feasibility.
Importantly, we are currently working on a separate grant initiative outside of ProPGF, designed to support projects that may be better suited for a different funding structure or scope.
Our team will be reaching out directly to selected applicants as this program takes shape.
We strongly encourage teams to remain engaged and apply in future cycles.
💸 What Happens Next Agreements and KYB completion Milestone tracking via Karma Grantee Slack onboarding Structured reporting and transparency Initial disbursements begin shortly.
🔭 Looking Ahead As Filecoin continues to mature, so too does its capital allocation strategy.
ProPGF is evolving toward:
Greater funding transparency Stronger milestone accountability Better capital efficiency Alignment with long-term network KPIs Batch 2 marks another step toward building sustainable capital infrastructure around Filecoin.
We’re excited to support this cohort and look forward to sharing more about the long-term roadmap for ProPGF in upcoming posts.
📣 Stay Engaged If you’d like to explore the scope of funded work and follow progress updates from Batch 2 teams, please visit filpgf.io and navigate to the ProPGF Batch 2 → Approved Projects section. All funded projects will be reporting milestone updates there.
For applicants: you should be able to access your full application details directly via filpgf.io. If you encounter any issues or have questions regarding agreements, KYB, or payouts, please reach out to [email protected].
We appreciate the continued engagement from the ecosystem and look forward to building the next phase of Filecoin infrastructure together.
PANews reported on March 4 that Akave, a decentralized cloud storage service provider, announced the completion of a $6.65 million funding round, with participation from Protocol Labs, No Limit Holdings, Blockchange, Lightshift, Blockchain Builders Fund, Big Brain Holdings, Avalanche Foundation, and Filecoin Foundation.
Akave Cloud is an S3-compatible decentralized storage platform built on a dedicated Avalanche Layer 1 blockchain. It is designed to provide enterprises with an alternative to traditional cloud storage, enabling AI applications to run without being locked into specific cloud service providers.
Filecoin [FIL] recorded a clear decline over the past day, dropping by 9.5%, at press time. The pullback does not appear to stem from any major fundamental developments, but rather from speculative positioning in the derivatives market.
The perpetual Futures market has become increasingly active, with traders positioning for further downside, particularly in the short term. However, the behavior in this market differs from what is typically observed during periods of price decline.
Capital inflows bet on further decline The sharp price drop did not align with the capital outflows that typically accompany asset weakness.
Instead, the opposite occurred, creating a somewhat paradoxical situation that is rarely observed in the market. Despite the price decline, the FIL perpetual market recorded notable capital inflows.
Such capital increases during a falling market are unusual, as perpetual traders often close positions in panic when prices weaken. However, data from CoinGlass showed that inflows totaled $26.45 million, bringing total Open Interest (OI) to $138.56 million as of writing.
Source: CoinGlass The OI-Weighted Funding Rate, which measures whether capital in the perpetual market favors bulls or bears, indicates that bearish sentiment currently dominates.
Notably, the OI-Weighted Funding Rate has dropped into deep negative territory of -0.0691%. A decline of this magnitude suggests that the newly added capital is largely being used to open short positions as traders anticipate further price declines.
Indicators hint at a bearish takeover The technical outlook on the chart remains weak. At the time of writing, FIL has broken below a key support level that it failed to breach four separate times in February.
The current setup points to a strictly bearish outlook, particularly as the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) indicator has formed a death cross at the time of writing.
This pattern occurs when the orange signal line crosses below the blue MACD line, indicating that bearish momentum is beginning to strengthen.
Source: TradingView The Bull Bear Power (BBP) indicator reinforces this outlook. The metric helps determine whether bulls or bears control the market based on bar formations on the chart. Red bars indicate bearish dominance, while green bars suggest that bulls are maintaining control.
Moreover, bears appeared to dominate the market. The BBP showed a deep red bar with significant intensity, highlighting growing selling pressure that continues to threaten FIL’s price outlook.
Spot investors add to the pressure Spot market activity is offering little support to the asset. In fact, spot traders have been selling their holdings even before the recent price drop intensified.
At press time, data from CoinGlass’ spot exchange netflow indicated that more than $4.22 million worth of FIL has exited exchanges over the past 72 hours.
Source: CoinGlass When spot traders sell during periods of weakness, it typically signals a short-term bearish outlook among market participants, adding further downward pressure on price.
If the selling trend continues, it could weigh further on FIL’s price and increase the risk of an extended decline, potentially worsening the broader market outlook for the asset.
Final Summary FIL has seen capital inflows in the perpetual market, with the majority of capital directed toward short positions. Spot traders continue to sell their FIL holdings, worsening the outlook.
US-listed AI chip stocks saw mixed pre-market performance, with Qualcomm surging 13%.
According to Bitget market data, U.S. AI chip stocks posted mixed pre-market performance: Qualcomm (QCOM.O) surged 13%, Intel (INTC.O) rose nearly 6%, AMD (AMD.O) gained nearly 4%, and Google (GOOG.O) declined 1.4%.
3 minutes ago
Micron Technology surges 18% in pre-market trading on US stocks
According to Bitget market data, the US stock storage sector is seeing broad pre-market gains. Micron Technology (MU.O) jumps 18% in pre-market trading, as its strong earnings significantly exceeded expectations, with multiple major banks raising the stock’s target price. SanDisk (SNDK) rises 12.25%, Western Digital (WDC) gains 12.05%, and Seagate Technology (STX) climbs 8.63%.
3 minutes ago
SBI announced it will acquire cryptocurrency trading platform Bitbank for 46.7 billion yen.
According to Nikkei News, Japanese financial group SBI Holdings announced on the 25th that it will acquire cryptocurrency exchange platform bitbank for 46.7 billion yen (approximately $288 million). Upon completion of the transaction, SBI Group’s crypto asset custody scale is expected to exceed 1 trillion yen, making it one of the largest operators in Japan’s crypto industry. Per the plan, a subsidiary under SBI Holdings will acquire Bitbank shares from individual shareholders including its founders as early as August this year. Bitbank will then repurchase shares held by existing shareholders MIXI and Ceres by the end of October. If combining data from SBI’s own crypto exchange SBI VC Trade and Bitbank, as of April this year, the two firms had a total of around 2.92 million accounts and total custody assets of approximately 1.1 trillion yen. While different crypto exchanges disclose custody assets at varying time points, among Japan’s major industry competitors, bitFlyer held about 960 billion yen in custody assets as of the end of December 2025, and Coincheck had around 800 billion yen as of the end of March 2025.
3 minutes ago
Bithumb was fined for sharing user data overseas without consent.
South Korean regulatory authorities have ordered cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb to pay a 210 million won (approximately $136,000) fine for sharing user personal information with overseas platforms without user consent. According to an announcement released Thursday by South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC), the relevant user data exposure occurred between September and November 2025. At that time, Bithumb transferred user information to overseas platforms while sharing its USDT market order book data. The PIPC also noted that when assisting users with asset transfers to 13 overseas exchanges, Bithumb failed to obtain full and sufficient user consent before sharing personal details including names, wallet addresses, and dates of birth. For the two violations, the PIPC not only imposed the fine but also ordered Bithumb to rectify its processes and management systems related to cross-border transmission of user information.
IOG CEO and founder Charles Hoskinson has publicly welcomed Filecoin into the Cardano ecosystem.
The move signals stronger momentum toward cross-chain collaboration. Notably, Hoskinson’s remarks follow a new infrastructure upgrade that introduces Filecoin-backed storage capabilities for Cardano developers.
Accordingly, builders can now benefit from improved reliability, verifiable storage, and seamless scalability without changing their existing workflows.
Key Points Charles Hoskinson has welcomed Filecoin into the Cardano ecosystem, describing it as one of the industry’s original players. A new storage upgrade by Blockfrost leverages Filecoin to deliver decentralized, resilient data storage for Cardano-based dApps. Filecoin already functions as a backup layer through an earlier collaboration with Blockfrost, securing IPFS-hosted data for Cardano applications. The integration highlights an industry shift toward interoperability, an approach Hoskinson has consistently supported. Hoskinson Welcomes Filecoin to Cardano Amid Its Deeper Integration In a recent statement, Hoskinson publicly welcomed Filecoin to the Cardano ecosystem, following the project’s deeper integration with it. He described Filecoin as one of the industry’s “OGs,” highlighting its long-standing.
His commentary follows the latest Blockfrost upgrade, which introduces a premium storage layer powered by Filecoin. The move gives Cardano developers access to decentralized, verifiable, and highly resilient data storage.
Since the system eliminates additional infrastructure overhead, developers can immediately adopt these capabilities without modifying their workflows.
Filecoin is one of the OGs. Welcome to the Cardano ecosystem https://t.co/nTQdWAmYj4
— Charles Hoskinson (@IOHK_Charles) April 22, 2026
Initial Integration Meanwhile, this update builds on a December 2024 collaboration between Blockfrost and the Filecoin Foundation, which positioned Filecoin as a robust backup layer for Cardano applications.
By archiving IPFS data on Filecoin, the integration enhances redundancy, protects against data loss or corruption, and enables cryptographic verification of stored data.
In addition, Filecoin leverages Proof of Replication and Proof of Spacetime to ensure that data remains uniquely stored and continuously maintained over time.
These mechanisms introduce strong guarantees around trust and auditability, making them particularly valuable for data-driven applications and emerging use cases such as decentralized AI.
.@blockfrost_io added a premium storage tier for @Cardano developers backed by Filecoin.
Distributed across independent providers, verifiable, with no infrastructure overhead.
For data-driven apps on Cardano, that's a reliability upgrade with no workflow changes required. pic.twitter.com/M6aje4V88y
— Filecoin (@Filecoin) April 21, 2026
Broader Implications Meanwhile, Hoskinson’s response highlights an industry shift toward interoperability and shared infrastructure. Leading networks are increasingly collaborating to deliver more secure, scalable, and decentralized systems.
Hoskinson has consistently advocated for this approach. In late 2024 and early 2025, for example, he engaged in discussions with leaders at Ripple and Stellar for potential collaborations.
He believes greater unity across the blockchain sector could accelerate mainstream adoption and strengthen the industry’s position amid regulatory pressures.
As Hoskinson noted, Filecoin has been a long-standing player in the crypto space, launching in August 2017 shortly before Cardano. Since then, it has built a reputation as a decentralized storage network that preserves critical data by connecting users with independent storage providers worldwide.
DisClamier: This content is informational and should not be considered financial advice. The views expressed in this article may include the author's personal opinions and do not reflect The Crypto Basic opinion. Readers are encouraged to do thorough research before making any investment decisions. The Crypto Basic is not responsible for any financial losses.
US-listed AI chip stocks saw mixed pre-market performance, with Qualcomm surging 13%.
According to Bitget market data, U.S. AI chip stocks posted mixed pre-market performance: Qualcomm (QCOM.O) surged 13%, Intel (INTC.O) rose nearly 6%, AMD (AMD.O) gained nearly 4%, and Google (GOOG.O) declined 1.4%.
3 minutes ago
Micron Technology surges 18% in pre-market trading on US stocks
According to Bitget market data, the US stock storage sector is seeing broad pre-market gains. Micron Technology (MU.O) jumps 18% in pre-market trading, as its strong earnings significantly exceeded expectations, with multiple major banks raising the stock’s target price. SanDisk (SNDK) rises 12.25%, Western Digital (WDC) gains 12.05%, and Seagate Technology (STX) climbs 8.63%.
3 minutes ago
SBI announced it will acquire cryptocurrency trading platform Bitbank for 46.7 billion yen.
According to Nikkei News, Japanese financial group SBI Holdings announced on the 25th that it will acquire cryptocurrency exchange platform bitbank for 46.7 billion yen (approximately $288 million). Upon completion of the transaction, SBI Group’s crypto asset custody scale is expected to exceed 1 trillion yen, making it one of the largest operators in Japan’s crypto industry. Per the plan, a subsidiary under SBI Holdings will acquire Bitbank shares from individual shareholders including its founders as early as August this year. Bitbank will then repurchase shares held by existing shareholders MIXI and Ceres by the end of October. If combining data from SBI’s own crypto exchange SBI VC Trade and Bitbank, as of April this year, the two firms had a total of around 2.92 million accounts and total custody assets of approximately 1.1 trillion yen. While different crypto exchanges disclose custody assets at varying time points, among Japan’s major industry competitors, bitFlyer held about 960 billion yen in custody assets as of the end of December 2025, and Coincheck had around 800 billion yen as of the end of March 2025.
3 minutes ago
Bithumb was fined for sharing user data overseas without consent.
South Korean regulatory authorities have ordered cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb to pay a 210 million won (approximately $136,000) fine for sharing user personal information with overseas platforms without user consent. According to an announcement released Thursday by South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC), the relevant user data exposure occurred between September and November 2025. At that time, Bithumb transferred user information to overseas platforms while sharing its USDT market order book data. The PIPC also noted that when assisting users with asset transfers to 13 overseas exchanges, Bithumb failed to obtain full and sufficient user consent before sharing personal details including names, wallet addresses, and dates of birth. For the two violations, the PIPC not only imposed the fine but also ordered Bithumb to rectify its processes and management systems related to cross-border transmission of user information.
TLDRMidnight and Cardano Ecosystem GrowthNIGHT Token and Multi-Chain StrategyGet 3 Free Stock Ebooks David Gokhshtein stated that Midnight expands Cardano’s ecosystem without competing with its core infrastructure. He explained that the NIGHT token creates new paths for innovation within the Cardano network. Charles Hoskinson confirmed that Midnight is moving toward a multi-chain framework with several integrations. He said partnerships with Near Intents, Algorand, and Filecoin support broader interoperability. Frederik Gregaard said the Cardano Foundation remains very bullish on Midnight’s development. Cardano’s partner chain Midnight continues to gain attention as leaders outline its role within the ecosystem. David Gokhshtein stated that the NIGHT token supports growth without competing with core infrastructure. He added that Midnight introduces new functions that extend Cardano’s technical scope.
Midnight and Cardano Ecosystem Growth David Gokhshtein explained that Midnight strengthens Cardano through added functionality and broader use cases. He stated that “Midnight adds more to Cardano’s ecosystem than people realize,” reinforcing its expanding role.
I’ll say this again: $NIGHT adds more to Cardano’s ecosystem than people realize.
It doesn’t take away from Cardano.
It gives the ecosystem another lane to grow.
— David Gokhshtein (@davidgokhshtein) April 30, 2026
He also clarified that NIGHT does not compete with ADA, which secures the main network. Instead, he said the token introduces “an additional lane for innovation” within the ecosystem.
Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson also discussed Midnight’s development direction in a recent podcast. He confirmed that the project already supports a multi-chain framework.
He referenced integrations with Near Intents, Algorand collaborations, and Filecoin connections. These integrations aim to expand interoperability across blockchain networks.
Hoskinson said this design improves decentralization and system resilience across platforms. He explained that Midnight operates within a broader cross-chain environment rather than isolation.
This approach allows Cardano to extend beyond its base layer and reach new ecosystems. As a result, developers can access wider tools and infrastructure.
NIGHT Token and Multi-Chain Strategy Cardano Foundation CEO Frederik Gregaard confirmed strong institutional support for Midnight and its token. He said the organization remains “very bullish” on Midnight’s long-term development.
He pointed to the NIGHT token launch and Tier-1 exchange listings as positive developments. These steps increased exposure and accessibility for users and institutions.
Gregaard also highlighted privacy as a key feature that drives Midnight’s value proposition. He explained that confidential transactions enable use cases unavailable on standard public blockchains.
He added that privacy-focused Layer-2 solutions could expand as this segment evolves. This direction aligns with growing demand for secure blockchain applications.
EMURGO CEO Phillip Pon described Midnight as a missing layer within Cardano’s architecture. He said the partner chain integrates privacy and secure data processing capabilities.
Pon explained that developers can build advanced applications using Midnight’s infrastructure. These tools support enterprise-level use cases and institutional adoption.
Midnight has already formed partnerships with Google Cloud and AlphaTon Capital. These collaborations focus on privacy solutions for Telegram-based AI agents.
Meanwhile, Monument Bank used Midnight to tokenize customer deposits on-chain. This application highlights practical use cases for financial services.
Pon confirmed that ADA and NIGHT function together within the ecosystem. ADA secures the network, while NIGHT enables specialized features like privacy.
Current market data shows NIGHT trading near $0.03241 with a market cap around $538 million. ADA trades near $0.2483, reflecting a decline of over 25% this year.
Filecoin [FIL] appears to be riding the broader market recovery fueled by easing geopolitical tensions. This shift in sentiment has boosted participation and strengthened price action, suggesting FIL could maintain its upward momentum in the days ahead.
At press time, FIL was trading at $1.10, up 15.50% over the past 24 hours, pushing its market capitalization to $847 million. During this period, the asset has recorded a massive surge in market participation, evident in its trading volume, which soared by 405% to $521 million.
Rising trading volume alongside price indicates a bullish outlook, suggesting that traders and investors are currently showing strong interest in the trend.
Can Filecoin’s price rally 48%? According to the price chart, FIL has turned bullish after breaking above the $1.08 resistance level, which it had been facing since February 2026. In previous attempts, each approach to this level triggered heavy selling pressure and subsequent price declines, but this breakout signals a shift in momentum.
Source: TradingView However, it is not yet confirmed whether the current breakout is stable, which can be determined once FIL closes a daily candle above the $1.08 level.
Based on the current price action, if FIL closes a daily candle above this key resistance, it could see a potential price jump of 48% and may reach the $1.65 level. On the other hand, if the price fails to close above $1.08, it could potentially repeat its historical pattern, leading to a price reversal.
At the time of writing, the technical indicator ADX, which measures directional strength, stood at 19.90, indicating weak trend strength. Whereas the Relative Strength Index (RSI) has moved above 75, suggesting the asset is in overbought territory, which points to a possible short-term correction before the rally continues.
On-chain and derivative data support a bullish outlook In addition to the price action, analytics and derivative platforms also point to a bullish outlook for the FIL token.
According to Nansen, an analytics platform, the top 100 FIL addresses have increased their holdings by 8.79% over the past month. Rising FIL holdings suggest the potential for a price rebound and indicate that the current price may be an ideal buying opportunity.
Source: Nansen Whereas Binance’s FIL Long/Short Ratio has reached 1.9771 as of writing, indicating strong bullish sentiment among traders, with a significant dominance of long positions in the market.
Source: CoinGlass In addition, the exchange liquidation map revealed that $1.01 on the downside and $1.16 on the upside are the two major liquidation levels for FIL at the moment.
Traders at these levels have built $14.59 million worth of long-leveraged positions and $5.64 million worth of short-leveraged positions, indicating bullish dominance and indicating that traders are betting on further price increases.
Final summary Filecoin has broken a key resistance, and price action suggests that a daily closing above $1.08 could trigger a 48% rally. The top 100 addresses have increased their holdings by 8.79%, while traders appear to be strongly betting on further price gains.
US-listed AI chip stocks saw mixed pre-market performance, with Qualcomm surging 13%.
According to Bitget market data, U.S. AI chip stocks posted mixed pre-market performance: Qualcomm (QCOM.O) surged 13%, Intel (INTC.O) rose nearly 6%, AMD (AMD.O) gained nearly 4%, and Google (GOOG.O) declined 1.4%.
3 minutes ago
Micron Technology surges 18% in pre-market trading on US stocks
According to Bitget market data, the US stock storage sector is seeing broad pre-market gains. Micron Technology (MU.O) jumps 18% in pre-market trading, as its strong earnings significantly exceeded expectations, with multiple major banks raising the stock’s target price. SanDisk (SNDK) rises 12.25%, Western Digital (WDC) gains 12.05%, and Seagate Technology (STX) climbs 8.63%.
3 minutes ago
SBI announced it will acquire cryptocurrency trading platform Bitbank for 46.7 billion yen.
According to Nikkei News, Japanese financial group SBI Holdings announced on the 25th that it will acquire cryptocurrency exchange platform bitbank for 46.7 billion yen (approximately $288 million). Upon completion of the transaction, SBI Group’s crypto asset custody scale is expected to exceed 1 trillion yen, making it one of the largest operators in Japan’s crypto industry. Per the plan, a subsidiary under SBI Holdings will acquire Bitbank shares from individual shareholders including its founders as early as August this year. Bitbank will then repurchase shares held by existing shareholders MIXI and Ceres by the end of October. If combining data from SBI’s own crypto exchange SBI VC Trade and Bitbank, as of April this year, the two firms had a total of around 2.92 million accounts and total custody assets of approximately 1.1 trillion yen. While different crypto exchanges disclose custody assets at varying time points, among Japan’s major industry competitors, bitFlyer held about 960 billion yen in custody assets as of the end of December 2025, and Coincheck had around 800 billion yen as of the end of March 2025.
3 minutes ago
Bithumb was fined for sharing user data overseas without consent.
South Korean regulatory authorities have ordered cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb to pay a 210 million won (approximately $136,000) fine for sharing user personal information with overseas platforms without user consent. According to an announcement released Thursday by South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC), the relevant user data exposure occurred between September and November 2025. At that time, Bithumb transferred user information to overseas platforms while sharing its USDT market order book data. The PIPC also noted that when assisting users with asset transfers to 13 overseas exchanges, Bithumb failed to obtain full and sufficient user consent before sharing personal details including names, wallet addresses, and dates of birth. For the two violations, the PIPC not only imposed the fine but also ordered Bithumb to rectify its processes and management systems related to cross-border transmission of user information.
Filecoin surged over 7% to $1.055, defying a broader cryptocurrency market downturn that saw Bitcoin and most major altcoins decline, according to TradersUnion data. The rally came alongside wider gains in decentralized physical infrastructure network tokens, as AI-driven storage demand reignited institutional interest in the DePIN sector.
Context and Background FIL had been trading in a consolidation range between roughly $0.80 support and $1.20 resistance since early February. A breakout above $1.08 earlier this month marked the first sustained move past that ceiling since February, according to BanklessTimes reporting.
On-chain data showed the top 100 FIL addresses increased their holdings by 8.79% over the prior month, signaling accumulation by larger wallets. The token reached a cycle low of $0.775 on March 29 before beginning its recovery.
Despite the recent uptick, FIL’s market capitalization remains below $1 billion, a fraction of its peak valuation during the 2021 storage hype cycle.
Expert Quote and Analysis Analyst Ao Ying flagged the transmission of the AI storage narrative from traditional equities into crypto, noting that capital from the equity storage trade was repricing Filecoin and other decentralized storage tokens.
BanklessTimes reported that AI infrastructure demand had nearly fully pre-booked 2026 storage capacity, creating a supply crunch that first lifted traditional disk-maker stocks before rotating into their crypto equivalents.
Open-source cloud storage tokens, including STORJ and Arweav,e rallied in tandem during the May 6 session, confirming a sector-wide capital rotation rather than a Filecoin-specific event. The pattern mirrors earlier DePIN rallies that initially lifted all boats, only for idiosyncratic fundamentals to determine which tokens held their gains.
Market Impact Spot volume reached $372 million during the initial DePIN rally on May 6, a 260% surge from the prior session. Futures volume printed $815.66 million, up 213% on the day, while open interest climbed 43.58% to $243.15 million.
Peer tokens STORJ gained 30%, and IO surged 69% during the same rotation. Despite the rally, FIL remains below its 50-day and 200-day moving averages, indicating the longer-term bearish trend has not fully reversed.
Industry Reaction Not all analysts are convinced the move is durable. Some have labeled FIL a “dead asset” following a 99% decline from its all-time high, arguing that short-lived DePIN rallies have repeatedly failed to sustain momentum in earlier cycles. TradersUnion models projected a five-day range of $0.89–$1.01 before the breakout, suggesting the current price has overshot near-term expectations.
What’s Next Traders are watching whether FIL can hold above the $1.08 breakout level on a weekly close. The next resistance zone sits near $1.20, which has capped rallies since January. Continued AI storage sector momentum and further whale accumulation will determine whether this move develops into a trend or fades as another failed breakout.
At press time, Filecoin’s [FIL] slid by 7% in the last 24 hours, extending its weekly decline to 26%. FIL’s recent decline reflects more than a failed rally. It reflects the loss of a structure that had supported price action for nearly two months.
Between late March and May, the $0.800-$0.830 zone repeatedly absorbed selling pressure and helped establish a base for the advance toward $1.35. However, that support eventually failed, sending FIL 47% below its May peak and roughly 11% beneath the former demand zone.
Source: FIL/USD on TradingView That breakdown changed market behavior. Buyers who accumulated within the range are now holding losing positions, which increases the likelihood of selling on any rebound. As a result, the $0.800-$0.830 area now acts as the key battleground rather than support.
Momentum indicators continue favoring sellers. The RSI sits at 27.63, suggesting oversold conditions, yet not the type of exhaustion that typically marks a durable bottom.
Meanwhile, the MACD remained firmly negative at press time, showing bearish momentum has yet to stabilize. Therefore, a short-term bounce remains possible, but unless FIL reclaims $0.830, the broader trend continues favoring a move toward the next support near $0.650.
AI models need storage that can keep up. Most decentralized options were built before that mattered.
Key takeawaysFilecoin, Arweave, and 0G Storage each solve different problems. Filecoin optimizes for cost and capacity. Arweave optimizes for permanence. 0G optimizes for throughput and AI workloads.0G Storage achieves 30+ MB/s throughput in mainnet production, compared to Filecoin's ~45-second retrieval latency and Arweave's block-size-limited uploads.0G is the only decentralized storage protocol with native mutable data support through its dual-layer architecture (immutable Log Layer + mutable KV Layer).Cost depends on use case: Filecoin offers $0.19/TB/month for cold archival, Arweave charges ~$5-8/GB for permanent storage, and 0G runs at $11/TB/month for high-throughput Turbo storage.The choice is not which protocol is "best." It is which protocol fits the workload.The storage problem AI createdTraining a large language model produces hundreds of terabytes of data: model weights, gradient checkpoints, tokenized datasets, evaluation logs. Inference generates its own volume: prompt histories, output caches, retrieval-augmented generation indexes that update in real time.
This data does not sit still. It gets read, modified, versioned, and fed back into the next training run. It needs to move fast, and it needs to be accessible the moment a compute node asks for it.
Decentralized storage was not built for this. The first generation of protocols solved a different problem: how to store files without relying on Amazon or Google. They optimized for durability, cost, and censorship resistance. Those were the right goals in 2018.
But AI workloads in 2026 need something else. They need throughput measured in megabytes per second, not minutes per retrieval. They need mutable data stores that can handle key-value lookups alongside large sequential writes. And they need storage that talks to compute without an integration layer bolted on after the fact.
That gap between what AI demands and what decentralized storage provides is where this comparison starts.
Three approaches to decentralized storageArweave: pay once, store foreverArweave launched in 2018 with a simple premise: pay a one-time fee and your data stays on the network permanently. The protocol uses an endowment model where roughly 95% of the storage fee goes into a reserve fund that pays miners over time, covering storage costs for 200+ years based on conservative projections of declining hardware costs.
The total data stored on Arweave sits at roughly 347 TiB as of early 2026. The network processes about 105 transactions per second and handles around 33 GiB in daily uploads. Its consensus mechanism, SPoRA (Succinct Proofs of Random Access), rewards miners who can quickly access randomly selected historical data chunks, which keeps the network incentivized to maintain full copies of the weave.
Arweave is ideal for records that should never change: legal documents, scientific datasets, cultural archives, NFT metadata. Its compute layer, AO, launched on mainnet in February 2025 and adds parallel processing on top of the storage layer.
The trade-off is throughput. Arweave transactions are capped at 10 MiB each, and the network uploads roughly 33 GiB per day. For AI workloads that involve hundreds of gigabytes moving in and out of storage, this creates a bottleneck.
Filecoin: the storage marketplaceFilecoin, live since October 2020, built something different: an open marketplace where storage providers compete on price and clients choose where their data lives. The network has committed roughly 23 EiB of capacity across 3,600+ storage providers globally, with about 3.0 EiB of active storage and 36% utilization.
Filecoin's verification system uses two proofs: Proof of Replication (proving data was uniquely encoded) and Proof of Spacetime (proving it stayed stored over time). The F3 upgrade in April 2025 reduced block finality from 7.5 hours to minutes, a major improvement for applications that need faster confirmation.
At ~$0.19/TB per month, Filecoin offers some of the cheapest decentralized storage available. The Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM) adds programmability, and the Filecoin Onchain Cloud (FOC) initiative is working toward verifiable compute services.
The limitation is latency. Filecoin was designed around sealed sectors of 32 or 64 GiB, and the sealing process takes roughly 1.5 hours. Retrieval depends on whether the storage provider keeps an unsealed copy of your data. If they do, retrieval can happen in seconds. If they don't, you're looking at hours. Average retrieval latency in North America sits at around 45 seconds. For real-time AI inference or high-frequency data access, that is too slow.
Three decentralized storage protocols: 0G, Filecoin, and Arweave0G Storage: built for AI workloads0G Storage launched with Aristotle Mainnet in September 2025 as part of 0G's modular AI infrastructure. It was designed from the start to handle the read/write patterns that AI systems produce.
The architecture has two layers. The Log Layer handles large, append-only data: model weights, training datasets, event streams. The KV Layer sits on top and provides mutable key-value storage with millisecond-level read/write latency for structured data like user profiles, application state, and real-time indexes.
In mainnet production, 0G Storage achieves 30+ MB/s throughput (engineering confirmed, March 2026). The system is architected for up to 50 Gbps in aggregate throughput as the network scales. Verification uses PoRA (Proof of Random Access), where storage nodes must prove they hold randomly selected data segments.
The pricing model runs at $11/TB per month on the Turbo tier. Unlike Filecoin's provider-specific marketplace pricing or Arweave's one-time permanent fee, 0G uses a flow-based system where storage requests go through on-chain smart contracts on an EVM-compatible Layer 1.
Enterprise clients are already discussing migration of multi-terabyte datasets to mainnet.
How they compareDimension0G StorageFilecoinArweaveDesign goalAI-native real-time storageGeneral-purpose decentralized storagePermanent immutable storageStorage typeMutable KV + Immutable LogContract-based sealed sectorsWrite-once, stored foreverThroughput30+ MB/s mainnet measuredRetrieval latency ~45s (NA avg)Limited by 10 MiB tx / ~33 GiB dailyCost$11/TB/month (Turbo)~$0.19/TB/month~$5-8/GB one-time permanentRedundancyUser-configurable backup count3-6 node fixed replicationNetwork-wide incentivized replicationData verificationPoRA random challengesPoRep + PoStSPoRA (Proof of Access)Mutable data✓ Native KV Layer support⚠ Adding via FVM✗ Immutable onlyAI workload integrationNative (Storage + Compute + Chain)Adding via FOCAdding via AOSources: 0G engineering (confirmed March 2026), Filecoin Starboard, Arweave ViewBlock, ArweaveFees, official documentation for each protocol.
Comparison table showing 0G Storage, Filecoin, and Arweave across 8 dimensionsChoosing the right toolThe comparison above does not have a single winner. Each protocol was built for a different job. Picking the right one depends on the workload.
Use CaseBest FitWhyCold archival, long-term backup, high-capacity storageFilecoin ($0.19/TB/month)Lowest recurring cost, flexible contract terms, 3,600+ global storage providersPermanent records, immutable archives, NFT metadataArweave (~$5-8/GB one-time)Pay once and never think about renewals. Data persists for 200+ yearsAI training data, real-time inference, high-throughput mutable data0G Storage ($11/TB/month)30+ MB/s measured throughput, native KV mutable storage, integrated with compute layerA research lab archiving a finished dataset might use Arweave for its permanence guarantee. A data warehouse storing petabytes of cold backups might choose Filecoin for cost efficiency. An AI pipeline that needs to read model weights, update inference caches, and write results back to storage in real time is a natural fit for 0G.
These are not competing tools. They cover different parts of the storage stack.
What makes 0G Storage differentFour properties separate 0G Storage from protocols built in the previous generation.
1. Dual-layer architecture
Most decentralized storage supports one data model: immutable files. 0G Storage supports two. The Log Layer handles large sequential data (model weights, logs, datasets) with append-only immutability. The KV Layer adds mutable key-value storage on top, enabling real-time queries and state updates without rewriting entire files.
This means a single storage system can hold both the static training data and the dynamic inference state for an AI application. No external database required.
2. Measured throughput
0G Storage delivers 30+ MB/s in mainnet production as confirmed by the engineering team in March 2026. The architecture is designed for up to 50 Gbps aggregate throughput as more nodes join the network. For context, Filecoin's average retrieval latency in North America is around 45 seconds, and Arweave's daily upload volume is roughly 33 GiB. The throughput gap matters most for AI workloads where storage is in the critical path between compute jobs.
3. Configurable redundancy
Filecoin locks data into 3-6 node replication. Arweave relies on network-wide incentives to ensure copies exist. 0G lets users choose their own backup count based on their needs. A public dataset might need minimal redundancy. A production AI model might need higher guarantees. The choice is yours.
4. AI-native integration
0G Storage is not a standalone service. It runs as part of a unified stack: 0G Chain (EVM-compatible Layer 1), 0G Compute (decentralized GPU marketplace), and 0G Storage. When a compute node needs model weights, it reads directly from storage on the same network. When inference results need to settle on-chain, the chain is right there. No bridging, no external API calls, no third-party integration layer.
Filecoin is adding compute capabilities through the Filecoin Onchain Cloud. Arweave has AO for parallel processing. Both are working toward similar goals, but those features are separate protocol additions rather than native parts of the storage architecture.
0G unified stack: Compute, Storage, and ChainWhat this enablesWith storage infrastructure that can handle AI-scale data at AI-scale speeds, the question shifts from "can we store this?" to "what can we build on top of it?"
Enterprise clients are already onboarding multi-terabyte datasets to 0G mainnet. The storage layer is one piece of a broader infrastructure that recently demonstrated a 107-billion parameter model trained across decentralized nodes using DiLoCoX with 357x better communication efficiency than traditional AllReduce.
Storage is the foundation. What gets built on that foundation is the next chapter.
Frequently asked questionsWhat is the main difference between 0G Storage, Filecoin, and Arweave?
Each protocol optimizes for a different priority. Filecoin optimizes for low-cost, large-scale archival storage. Arweave optimizes for permanent, immutable data preservation. 0G Storage optimizes for high-throughput, mutable storage designed around AI workload patterns.
Is 0G Storage trying to replace Filecoin or Arweave?
No. These protocols serve different use cases. Filecoin is well suited for cold storage and backups. Arweave is the right choice for data that must persist permanently. 0G fills a gap that neither covers: real-time, mutable, high-throughput storage for AI applications.
How does 0G Storage handle data verification?
0G uses Proof of Random Access (PoRA), where the network randomly challenges storage nodes to prove they hold specific data segments. Data is erasure-coded and distributed across nodes, and the network can tolerate up to 30% node failure while maintaining data availability.
What does "AI-native" mean in the context of storage?
It means the storage system was designed from the start to support AI workload patterns: high-throughput sequential reads (loading model weights), mutable key-value access (updating inference state), and direct integration with compute infrastructure (no separate bridging or API layer needed).
How mature is 0G Storage compared to Filecoin and Arweave?
Filecoin launched in October 2020 and Arweave launched in June 2018. 0G's Aristotle Mainnet went live in September 2025. While 0G is newer, its architecture was built with six years of lessons from earlier protocols. The network is in its early growth phase with enterprise clients actively onboarding data.
Explore 0G StorageRead the architecture deep-dive: 0G Storage: Built for the AI EraRun a storage node: Storage Node DocumentationStart building: 0G Storage SDKMonitor the network: StorageScanFollow @0G_labs for updatesThis article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
Sources:
0G Storage Documentation (architecture, PoRA, pricing)0G Storage: Built for the AI Era (architecture overview)Aristotle Mainnet Launch (CryptoSlate, September 2025)Filecoin Starboard Dashboard (network capacity, utilization)Filecoin Documentation (proofs, sealing, FVM)Filecoin F3 Upgrade (finality improvement)Arweave ViewBlock (weave size, TPS, daily uploads)ArweaveFees (real-time pricing)AO Mainnet Launch (The Block, February 2025)0G engineering team confirmations (throughput, cost, redundancy model; March 2026)
Crypto development often runs on a different clock from token markets, quieter, slower, but no less revealing. That was the clear takeaway from a short but telling tweet by CryptoDep this week, which shared a Santiment-sourced snapshot titled “Top AI & Big Data Projects by Developer Activity (30d).” The dataset looks at public GitHub events, commits, pull requests, issues and other visible activity across projects that sit at the intersection of blockchain, AI and big data.
At first glance, the numbers are stark. ICP towers above the rest with a development activity score of 237 for the 30-day window. The gap between that figure and the next entries is immediate. Filecoin recorded 36.3, Livepeer 31.2, and The Graph 24.4. Further down the list are projects that blend AI and decentralized compute. Bittensor is at 18.1, QUBIC at 17.8, and Oasis Network at 17.5. FLUX sits at 16.4, while Swarms and Virtuals Protocol round out the ten with 8.63 and 8.13, respectively. Santiment is credited as the data source.
Numbers like these don’t tell the whole story by themselves, but they do give you a useful compass. Public GitHub activity is a blunt instrument; it misses private work, research notes, and contributions that happen off-platform, yet when you see a spike or a big gap, it usually signals something concrete: major upgrades, developer sprints to fix bugs, or an influx of new contributors.
AI Blockchain Development Race In ICP’s case, a 237 score screams “something is happening” in public repositories. That could mean a series of protocol improvements, new SDKs or tools, or simply a coordinated push from the community to move features forward. Filecoin and Livepeer finishing near the top makes intuitive sense.
Both projects are infrastructure-heavy. Filecoin handles decentralized storage, and Livepeer focuses on video streaming infrastructure. Those spaces demand constant iteration to improve reliability and developer ergonomics. The Graph’s strong showing also tracks with expectations, indexing networks require regular maintenance to support an expanding web of decentralized apps and data queries.
The mid-pack entries are interesting because they represent projects that try to mash together AI-style models and decentralized compute marketplaces. Networks like Bittensor, QUBIC and FLUX are prototypes of an emerging category. Think marketplaces for compute, data or model training that aren’t controlled by a single cloud provider.
They show steady developer momentum, even if they don’t yet generate the kind of public activity seen in larger infrastructure projects. That may simply reflect smaller teams, more private experimentation, or development that’s not reflected in a single public repository. Lower scores for projects such as Swarms and Virtuals shouldn’t be read as failures.
In many cases, smaller numbers mean quieter, focused development cycles: auditing smart contracts, private testnets, or groundwork that won’t appear as frequent GitHub events. The ratio of visible commits to meaningful progress isn’t always linear. For people watching the space, engineers considering which stacks to learn, or investors trying to separate hype from substance, developer activity is a useful input among many.
It’s not a prediction of price, but it does help you see where engineering energy is concentrated. This snapshot from CryptoDep, using Santiment’s metrics, is a reminder that the most interesting action in crypto often happens in code, not on exchanges. Keep an eye on these repos; when development accelerates, feature releases and ecosystem growth often follow.
AUTHOR
Mushumir Butt is a seasoned crypto journalist with over three years of experience reporting on the world of blockchain and cryptocurrency. At Blockchain Reporter, he delivers insightful news, in‐depth project reviews, and precise price analysis and predictions. With a strong background in SEO and digital marketing, Mushumir excels at breaking down complex trends into clear, accessible content, ensuring readers stay ahead in the fast‐paced crypto space.
[PRESS RELEASE – Buenos Aires, Argentina, November 18th, 2025]
Today, the Filecoin ecosystem launched Filecoin Onchain Cloud, a decentralized cloud platform offering verifiable storage, fast retrieval, and fully on-chain programmable payments. Early integrations are from the ERC-8004 community, Ethereum Name Service (ENS), KYVE, Monad, Safe, Akave, Storacha, Geo Podcasts, and more. The launch was announced at DePIN Day Buenos Aires, hosted by Fluence.
Centralized Outages Expose Crypto’s Dependence
Recent outages at major cloud providers have taken Web3 offline, underscoring its reliance on centralized infrastructure. Filecoin Onchain Cloud offers a verifiable alternative for builders seeking open, resilient systems.
New pressures are also straining centralized stacks. AI systems produce data at a massive scale, governments dictate where it can reside, and on-chain AI agents now need different infrastructure.
A Foundation for Verifiable Infrastructure
Filecoin Onchain Cloud meets that demand by expanding the Filecoin network into a programmable layer for verifiable cloud services, enabling developers to compose storage, retrieval, and payment logic on-chain.
“Filecoin Onchain Cloud brings onchain guarantees like verifiability, programmability, and openness to cloud-scale infra services,” says Molly Mackinlay, CEO, FilOz. “With storage, retrieval, and payments that are all fully composable and auditable onchain, all Web3 dApps, agents, and infra networks can be truly unstoppable. Filecoin Onchain Cloud provides the building blocks applications need for a Cambrian explosion of onchain services powered by the global network of Filecoin service providers. Builders deserve a cloud built on proofs, not promises!”
Filecoin Onchain Cloud emerges from years of collaboration across the Filecoin ecosystem, uniting hot storage proofs, composable smart contracts, and on-chain payments.
Filecoin Pin, its first developer toolkit, persists IPFS content on Filecoin through simple, accessible tools.
At launch, Filecoin Onchain Cloud introduces core services that form the base of a decentralized cloud, accessible through the Synapse SDK. Warm Storage keeps data online with on-chain proofs, Filecoin Pay automates usage-based payments, and Filecoin Beam supports measured, incentivized retrievals. Together, they let developers compose, monitor, and monetize data services.
Early Integrations
Developers and teams are already experimenting with early integrations:
ERC-8004 / Agent0
ERC-8004 builders use Filecoin Pin to store agent identities and metadata verifiably on-chain. Agent0 extends this by pinning all agent data to Filecoin, enabling tamper-proof discovery without centralized catalogs.
“Agent ecosystems depend on verifiable metadata,” said Marc De Rossi, author of ERC-8004 and creator of Agent0. “By pinning agent identity and reputation data on Filecoin Onchain Cloud, we can ensure that discovery and interaction between agents happens on tamper-proof infrastructure. It’s a huge step toward an open standard for verifiable AI.”
Ethereum Name Service (ENS) and Safe
ENS, Safe, and Filecoin Onchain Cloud form an on-chain stack for deploying and governing trustless frontends, with ENS for naming, Safe for multi-sig control, and Filecoin Onchain Cloud for persistent, verifiable storage.
“Using ENS to give names for content and apps on the decentralized web has been possible since 2018,” said Simon Schmid, Developer Relations Lead, ENS Labs. “With Filecoin Onchain Cloud it is now possible to properly incentivize storage and availability at scale in a decentralized way. Super excited to see all the pieces coming together with Safe leading as an example of how it’s done,”
Monad
Through the Monad AI Blueprint program, developers can seamlessly deploy Filecoin Onchain Cloud storage endpoints and build AI systems that are fast, self-verifying, and wallet-controlled.
KYVE
KYVE uses Filecoin Onchain Cloud to durably store Celestia and Story Protocol chain data across decentralized providers. After starting in the Arweave ecosystem, they’re expanding to Filecoin for greater scale and faster validator syncing.
“At KYVE, our mission has always been to make blockchain data permanent, verified, and accessible to everyone,” said Fabian Riewe, Founder, KYVE. “By leveraging Filecoin’s Onchain Cloud, we’re taking the next step, scaling from terabytes to petabytes of decentralized storage. This collaboration brings us closer to a truly universal data infrastructure for Web3.”
Akave Cloud
Akave Cloud is using Filecoin Onchain Cloud to extend verifiable storage from hot workloads into a decentralized backup and archiving tier built for AI, IoT, ML, and compliance data that demands durable, auditable, affordable storage.
“By uniting Akave Cloud’s high-performance, verifiable S3-compatible infrastructure with Filecoin Onchain Cloud’s global decentralized storage network and services, users will gain more flexibility and have the ability to optimize for cost, speed, and durability within a seamless, unified system,” said Stefaan Vervaet, CEO, Akave.
Storacha
Storacha’s Forge offers IPFS-compatible warm storage with on-chain proofs of data possession. It provides high-throughput, auditable storage secured by Filecoin Onchain Cloud’s verification and payment rails.
“Storacha Forge is a new Filecoin Onchain Cloud service making verifiable warm storage radically affordable,” said Alexander Kinstler, CEO of Storacha. “At $5.99 per terabyte, Storacha Forge is built for the petabyte-scale data behind AI and DePIN. By building on the Filecoin Onchain Cloud, we combine cryptographic integrity with unmatched economics.”
Geo Podcasts
Geo Podcasts is built on the Geo knowledge-graph protocol and helps users discover top podcasts. By storing its podcast data, images, and knowledge-graph records on Filecoin Onchain Cloud, Geo Podcasts ensures all information is verifiable across applications.
“We want to make sure that all of Geo’s knowledge graph data is open and available to all,” said Yaniv Tal, Founder, Geo. “Filecoin Onchain Cloud gives users guarantees that their knowledge data will stay around, giving them even more confidence to contribute to the Geo knowledge commons.”
An Open Foundation
Filecoin Onchain Cloud lays the groundwork for a verifiable cloud ecosystem, and ongoing collaboration with the developer community will continue to grow the stack.
“Launching Filecoin Onchain Cloud is a huge milestone for the Filecoin network,” said Marta Belcher, President and Chair of the Filecoin Foundation. “FOC unlocks critical capabilities that will accelerate the Filecoin network’s mission to build a more open, resilient, and verifiable internet.”
Filecoin Onchain Cloud is live on Filecoin testnet today, with mainnet launch planned for January 2026.
Visit filecoin.cloud.
About Filecoin Foundation
Filecoin Foundation’s mission is to preserve humanity’s most important information, facilitate open-source governance of the Filecoin network, fund research and development for decentralized technologies, and support the growth of the Filecoin ecosystem and community.
About FilOz
FilOz is a research and development team advancing the Filecoin network through protocol engineering, research, and network upgrades.
Top 1 On-Chain Liquidation: ETH Bull Whale Hit With 4 Consecutive Forced Liquidations, $14.11 Million in Positions Liquidated
According to Hyperinsight monitoring, today’s largest liquidation on the Hyperliquid platform involved a high-leverage Ethereum (ETH) long whale. The address opened a long position yesterday when ETH was trading at roughly $1,661, and immediately incurred losses after entry. Triggered by ETH’s short-term dip below $1,600 in the early hours of today, the whale faced four consecutive liquidations, resulting in the forced closure of a total of 8,734 ETH positions valued at approximately $14.11 million. The address now holds less than $150,000 in remaining funds, with all positions fully cleared. Address: 0x1cb0b187c14a8c0fb36ca0dcbb775dcc7f02b408
1 minutes ago
A certain on-chain address opened long positions in BTC, ETH, and silver, and purchased $10.699 million worth of BTC and ETH spot.
According to on-chain analyst Ai Yi (@ai_9684xtpa)’s monitoring, address 0x960…3f0fc simultaneously went long on both futures and spot positions this early morning, opening long positions of 102.55 BTC, 954.38 ETH, and 8,790 silver units, with total position value around $8.29 million. It also purchased spot BTC and ETH worth approximately $10.699 million. Its current take-profit levels are set at $63,000 for BTC and $1,650 for ETH.
1 minutes ago
A whale that reaped over $23.77 million in profits from the Basic Attention Token (BAT) ICO has reawakened after six years of dormancy, offloading 12,600 ETH in the past two days.
According to monitoring by EmberCN, a whale address that participated in the BAT ICO in 2017 and generated approximately $23.77 million in total profits has started selling ETH recently after six years of inactivity. Over the past two days, the address has sold 12,586 ETH, receiving 20.59 million USDS in exchange, at an average selling price of roughly $1,636. The whale invested 17,789 ETH in the BAT ICO in May 2017, acquiring around 113.8 million BAT. It then sold BAT gradually over approximately two and a half years at an average price of $0.245, netting about $23.77 million in profits, with some of the BAT converted into 27,586 ETH. Since then, the ETH has remained inactive for a long time until it resumed reducing its holdings recently. Currently, the address still holds around 15,000 ETH, valued at approximately $24.29 million.
1 minutes ago
Japanese storage firm Kioxia plans to list American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) in the U.S. in April or May next year.
Market news: Japanese storage chip maker Kioxia plans to list its American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) in the U.S. in April or May next year. (Jinshi)
1 minutes ago
Micron's earnings report lifts SK Hynix's stock price 11%, trader 'yixie' expands their unrealized profit to $1.3 million.
According to Hyperinsight monitoring, Micron’s Q3 financial results exceeded all expectations, driving peer SK Hynix’s stock to rally nearly 11% from its recent low. On the Hyperliquid platform, SKHYNIX is currently trading at $1,821, up 6.2% in the past 24 hours. Prominent trader yixie (X: @yixie10) nearly doubled his principal during this rally; he is now holding a 2x long position of 2,289 SKHYNIX contracts at an average entry price of ~$1,239.9. Fueled by the rally, the position’s unrealized profit has expanded to $1.37 million, a 96% gain. As of press time, the trader boasts an 85% win rate in semiconductor storage stock trades since opening positions this year, with total historical profits of $6.68 million, including $4.25 million from Micron Technology trades. Address: 0xa65ce1d604fa901c13aa29f2126a57d9032e412b – HyperInsight Bot is now live. Add @HyperInsightBot to your Telegram group and set it as an admin (enable message sending permission) to automatically sync on-chain news.
1 minutes ago
STRC drops to near $80, marking another new all-time low.
According to Bitget market data, Strategy’s preferred stock STRC has dropped to a low of $80.26, hitting a new all-time low since its listing. Calculated based on a $100 par value, the current discount has reached 20%.
As data has become synonymous with “digital gold,” it’s no wonder the demand for access to real-time data is skyrocketing. On the same side, as Web 3 or decentralized technologies are emerging, the shortcomings of centralized services within the Web3 stack are being addressed.
Streamr is among such decentralized projects that provide a real-time data infrastructure as it allows data to travel via a global peer-to-peer network that is scalable, robust, and permissionless. Streamr sets itself apart through the use of blockchain technology for data sharing.
Streamr’s real-time data delivery system operates through the help of a P2P or a Peer-to-Peer network in a pub-sub fashion. Pub-sub or Publish-Subscribe is an asynchronous communication model that supports scalable and reliable communication.
Similar to BitTorrent, Streamr is a network of nodes that can pipe messages to one another without intermediaries. However, the key difference between the two is that Streamr is for real-time data streams, whereas BitTorrent does not operate real-time data streams.
Background of Streamr Launched in 2017, Streamr was launched by the founders of Streamr, who believed there needed to be a way to connect billions of devices with real-time data through the help of a decentralized network.
The importance of real-time data must be addressed, particularly due to the growth of DePIN or Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks. This is because DePIN helps to move the work of large data centers to non-technical people around the globe, ultimately bringing in huge benefits, particularly of trust.
DePIN is owned and operated by users, making it neither a public nor a private infrastructure. DePINs allow for building real-time data ecosystems, giving stakeholders the power to add value and additional services that help to support the ecosystem.
At the same time, for the development of a decentralized future, real-time data is needed as this helps to power decentralized applications or dApps. DApps need external data to function, and if they remain dependent on the existing centralized data networks, dApps will eventually become liable to all the existing problems that are present in Web 2.
These liabilities include user data being susceptible to cyber attacks, power remaining in the hands of a few, a complete lack of robustness, misuse of private data, monopolistic positions that cause inflated costs, and the risk of a single point of failure.
These issues bring serious concerns to not only the development of decentralized applications but the entire decentralized internet or Web 3, where the promise is to give users more power over their data through decentralization.
Development of StreamrWhile an ecosystem of decentralized P2P networks already exists, Streamr development takes a completely different approach, focusing on real-time data. Through the help of this real-time data, anyone can publish events on data streams, and anyone can subscribe to streams.
First and foremost, Streamr is a P2P network that utilizes a Pub-sub messaging pattern, including one-to-many, many-to-many, or many-to-one streaming. This allows DePIN builders to build in a UP, ACROSS, or BROADCAST fashion, depending upon the different use cases.
For example, DIMO, which is an open and user-owned IoT network that uses Streamr, is built in a UP fashion from Miner to Network. With the help of DIMO, developers can easily access barometric pressure, temperatures, and other weather-related data in real-time. This gives developers who require weather data to power their applications an ideal solution.
In the future, DIMO plans to build in an ACROSS fashion, giving miners more flexibility to connect. This will help to ensure that DIMO’s data stream is completely decentralized and not owned or controlled by any centralized authority.
Streamr 1.0, which is the final milestone in Streamr’s original 2017 roadmap, means when it is implemented, it will lead to the implementation of the network tokenomics, meaning the network is fully decentralized. Anyone can now set up an operator node, and delegators can now delegate their tokens to the operator node.
The Network Tokenomics of $DATAWithin the Streamr Network, both data publishers and subscribers are Nodes in a P2P network.
Nodes that are involved in a stream of data connect one another in a certain way, ultimately helping to form the stream’s topology through which the main function of Streamr Network can be performed.
Therefore, every node that joins a stream does two things: it consumes the data and relays it onwards to other nodes interested in the stream.
To incentivize good nodes who ensure data flows robustly and stably, the honest and stable nodes are paid, forming the basis of Streamr Network Tokenomics. Streamr tokenomics works similarly to the gas price of Ethereum. In Ethereum, users are constantly in a battle to incentivize miners to execute their transactions faster.
On Streamr, users have to pay less or nothing at times if they are happy with the best-effort performance. They can also pay to incentivize nodes to make the stream more robust and secure.
However, it is important to note that Streamr Network tokenomics is not based on buying more access to data on The Hub. On the Network, users pay for infrastructure costs for data delivery. On the application layer, users pay for access to data content.
Users can use the Network for data delivery without using The Hub, similar to a person who can send and receive packages without ordering products or services from online stores.
Streamr Stack The Streamr infrastructure consists of a tech stack that helps to connect and incentivize computers within a global peer-to-peer network. The entire stack is built on top of a decentralized transport layer, which helps to ensure resilience, fault tolerance, robustness, transparency, openness that comes with decentralization, and community building.
To facilitate their goal, the Streamr stack offers the following multilayered technology stack:
Streamr HubThe Hub or Streamr Hub serves as an entry point for developers, helping them to create and connect with live streaming data. The Hub is a portal that leads directly into the Streamr Network and is a step forward towards a more consciously open data approach, all while ensuring it does not undermine any Web3 ethos.
Other than DIMO, there are several other projects on the Hub. The first includes Polygon, in which Polygon Validators are sharing their validator node’s live metrics. The second includes EthWatch, which broadcasts the live stream of Ethereum and Polygon contract events.
Other projects that are built using Streamr include Swash, Redstone, and Unbanks. In the DePIN space, they include MapMetrics, IoTeX, and Peaq Network apart from DIMO.
As the demand for AI is growing, Streamr hub has 90% of the features of an AI marketplace. The smart contracts can be extended to allow users to publish prompts that can get access to the output of a pay-to-access remotely run model.
In the end, the goal of the Streamr hub is to facilitate the discovery and the delivery of what type of data exists out there, give users a comprehensive toolkit for its creation along with its management, and make it simpler for the users to subscribe to a data stream of their choice.
Streamr Network Streamr Network acts as the “transport layer” of the entire Streamr stack. The network handles all messaging in a decentralized data pipeline. This layer consists of primitives known as events & streams and broker nodes.
The Streamr Nodes operate on primitives, and the collection of broker nodes consists of a P2P network that handles the decentralized messaging. The infrastructure layer, on the other hand, uses the Ethereum stack for its operations as node coordination requires robust consensus, which the smart contract implements.
Streamr network has multiple different parts, all of which play an important role in transporting data. These include:
EventsAn event is a timestamped piece of information that contains headers and content. Headers provide the metadata of the vent, which includes its timestamp, content type, and origin. The content gives information on what format the content is in. Both are encoded in a binary format.
StreamsAll of the events that occur are a part of the stream. They are grouped in a logically relatable manner and stored in an ascending order. The entire metadata is stored on Ethereum’s smart contract. Streams carry five different pieces of information, namely user ID, name, description, owner, and permissions.
Publish-SubscribeThe data delivery in the Streamr network follows the publish-subscribe paradigm. Events that occur are promptly delivered to all those who are authorized and subscribed to the stream. This can be limited depending on what kind of access the user has.
Partitioning (Sharding)To achieve scalability, not all the Streamr nodes handle all the traffic. This is because the event traffic within the whole network is divided into several independent parts called partitions. Each broker node handles traffic that belongs to a different set of partitions.
Node CoordinationStreamr uses node coordination, which acts as a key coordinator for the assignment of network partitions to broker nodes in the network. Node coordination also helps to maintain changes when nodes appear and disappear. Streamr network uses its underlying Ethereum network to establish consensus for node coordination in the P2P network.
IncentivizationStreamr incentivizes Operators (who act as the miners on Streamr) to do two things: report the checksums for their assigned partitions to the network and deliver the data to any smart contract subscribers. To incentivize, Streamr sends them $DATA.
Event PersistenceFor Streamr to turn its entire network into a decentralized time series database, the events in data streams persist in the P2P network. The achieved decentralization allows the Streamr network to achieve greater robustness, fault tolerance, anonymity, and lower costs.
Data ProvenanceTo ensure hackers do not manipulate data for their monetary advantage, the Streamr Network cryptographically signs a private key. This helps to attest to the data provenance and ensures that the events on the network always carry a signature that can be verified.
Data ConfidentialityAs anyone can participate in the Streamr network by running a node, all of the event payloads of non-public streams in the Streamr network are encrypted. This encryption is done with the help of asymmetric key cryptography. Such an approach, combined with the help of encryption, brings safety.
Streamr Smart ContractsWhile several Ethereum-based smart contracts support the Streamr Network and The Hub, the Streamr Network also uses its smart contracts. These smart contracts help to improve coordination, permissions, incentivization, and integrity checking.
StreamThe Stream smart contract is the main smart contract that holds static information and carries the permissions for the stream.
Stream RegistryThe stream registry contract holds important information about the known streams in the network.
Network CoordinatorThe network coordinator contract assigns partitions to broker nodes. These Streamr Nodes register themselves with the coordinator and receive updates on the network state by looking at the smart contract.
$DATALastly, in the Streamr stack is the $DATA token, which is a means of compensation between the data producers and consumers. It’s an ERC 20 token that ensures that the payments are handled securely. It also provides interoperability with different wallets and other tokens. $DATA has the following main jobs:
Implement a monetization mechanism for data producers, which helps them act as a data vendor to step in wherever necessary and help the community grow to everyone’s benefit.
$DATA is also an incentive for maintaining and operating a P2P network, as it takes resources, time, computing power, and communication bandwidth. Without such an incentive, Streamr Nodes will not participate, and the entire P2P network in which the real-time data runs will collapse.
The primary application of $DATA includes when developers and subscribers pay for the data they want to get access to using $DATA. Additionally, data producers and the network participants are reimbursed for their participation with $DATA securely and automatically. Tokens can also be earned by running a particular node and then staking $DATA tokens on that node.
Streamr reimburses staking awards through the help of a supply inflation process, which was decided through the help of the project’s governance. In Streamr 1.0, delegated staking was introduced, which allowed token holders to not only run a node but also stake their $DATA in return for a reward.
Stream sponsorships are the final milestone of the Streamr project, as they bring the long-awaited incentive layer that fully activates the $DATA token economy. As streams operate an overlay of the network, stream Sponsorships attract new nodes to join the network. With the help of this, the Streamr network will become more robust from external attacks.
It will also help to prevent the data loss which is caused by node churn. When churn nodes consistently join and leave the stream, it adds instability to the topology, thereby leading to disruption in the message flow.
In other words, through the help of Sponsorships, Streamr nodes will become bulletproof.
Sponsorships work through the help of a smart contract that will release funds over time to operators who have joined them. Sponsors will fund sponsorships, as they will be the ones to create them by defining the terms of engagement.
The smart contract will help to ensure the agreed terms are fulfilled, and then DATA tokens will be transferred. They must deliver on their promise to avoid losing their tokens.
Operators and DelegatorsOperators are Streamr node runners. Operators can join or leave a sponsorship at any given time as long as they agree to the penalties while signing up. Delegators, on the other hand, are the passive liquidity providers for Operators. In return, they will earn revenue from well-performing operators.
The lifecycle of the Stream sponsorship will comprise 5 different steps and is as follows:
Firstly, a sponsorship smart contract will be created, which will describe all policies and parameters. Secondly, sponsors will pay DATA tokens on the agreed terms. Thirdly, operators will join sponsorship by staking on it. Fourth, Operators will join the sponsored stream network and relay data in the stream.
In the last step, if or when the sponsorship runs low on tokens, they can either be “topped up” or the reward will be given based on the configured emission rate. This process will ensure sponsorship contracts act as a decentralized mechanism that helps to manage a stream of earnings distributed within different operators.
Advantages over competitorsThe unique selling point of Streamr is that it provides a real-time data infrastructure of the decentralized web or Web 3, which already sets it apart from its competitors. There are several other advantages that Streamr brings, but other decentralized data storage projects are unable to do so. Some of these include:
Ease of miningUnlike Filecoin, which is one of Streamr’s primary competitors, users have an ease of mining and become a part of the network. In the case of Filecoin, users have to purchase expensive hardware. In addition, users also need to have some experience in systems deployment and administration, which makes it extremely difficult for non-technical people to enter.
In the case of Streamr, the barrier to entry is kept as minimum as possible as the project believes that’s the only way for the blockchain ecosystem to grow.
Fair token distributionThere’s an ever-existing fear of FIL, which is the native token of the Filecoin network to be dumped by its advisors. This is because, at the time of the launch, almost half of FIL supply was given to the advisors at half its existing price. In fact, Filecoin community members alleged 2020 token dumping when an unknown account received 1.5 million FIL tokens.
Meanwhile, Streamr has ensured the supply of its $DATA is done reasonably.
Non-DiscriminativeAnother key area that helps Streamr set itself apart from other projects is that it maintains a neutral stance on data and content.
On the other hand, Arweave has a Democratic Content Policy, which creates a potential conflict as network nodes have the power to issue a blacklist against certain data types, thus hindering the idea of an “open economy.”
Emphasis on adequate user interfaces & appropriate informationStreamr has a major focus on developer user interfaces that are much easier to use and are targeted toward people who have a relatively less technical background. Siacoin, which is one of its main competitors, has yet to offer adequate user interfaces.
A similar issue is also present with Arweave, where the project developers are unable to provide in-depth information that can help developers when they are building on their stack. What Streamr offers is unique as it provides in-depth, dense knowledge in a relatively easy-to-navigate manner to ensure developers do not face any issues.
Analysis of StreamrThe importance of data, especially one that runs in a combination of a real-time data market and the data pipeline, all while remaining decentralized, is transformative for the entire Web3, particularly because this gives a decentralized ecosystem exposure to data that has never existed before all while remaining true to decentralization.
Streamr maintains its tech stack layered and modular to allow non-tech individuals to participate in the network in one capacity or another.
It also hosts a publish-subscribe mechanism, which is a framework for exchanging messages between publishers and is widely used in Web2 due to its reliability. Streamr uses the same framework while making it decentralized, spread across different nodes rather than concentrated in one area, similar to centralized technologies.
To ensure transactions are scalable, with minimum latency, Streamr divides its throughput scales linearly. This allows the network not just to scale but also to process millions of events per second.
Streamr also allows users to sell their data directly, which gives them the power to monetize their data, all while knowing which companies and industries are using their data. Through the help of this transparency, users will be empowered, unlike in a centralized system where power is monopolized.
Anyone who owns a personal computer or a laptop can become part of the Streamr network by becoming a node operator and earning yield on staked tokens.
Emerging use cases of StreamrProving its versatility and adaptability, Streamr has the potential to revolutionize different industries and applications. Some of the emerging use cases of Streamr include:
[1] Video StreamingTraditional streaming services often need help with bandwidth limitations and central server outrages. Streamr’s P2P network can help distribute video content more efficiently by reducing latency as stream viewers become P2P distribution nodes as they consume the stream. This will help to improve the user experience.
[2] Decentralized AIStreamr helps to provide a strong infrastructure for real-time data collection and distribution. This is critical for training AI models, ultimately ensuring that AI systems can function without the hurdles present within centralized data servers. This helps to enable more efficient and scalable AI solutions.
The Streamr developer community has already developed the next generation of AI technologies. Some of these AI technologies include the Streamr node AI plugin, AI video distribution, LLM routing, AI chat, Verifiable AI, AI Audits, and AI data crowdsourcing.
As the need for decentralized data exchanges has become more apparent, Streamr can provide help to the entire Metaverse ecosystem. This can be done by providing a foundation for real-time data transmission that will enhance the interactivity and responsiveness of the virtual metaverse worlds.
[4] Web 3 GamingAs the importance of real-time data exchange and decentralized infrastructures is maintained in the fast-growing world of Web 3 gaming, Streamr provides a strong solution. It offers a platform where game developers can build decentralized gaming experiences with real-time player interactions and data exchanges.
[5] dApp MessagingDecentralized applications (dApps) at times rely on centralized servers for messaging, which leads towards a contradiction of Web 3 ethos. Streamr brings a solution as it can provide a decentralized messaging platform that enables dApps to embrace decentralization.
Final Thoughts Decentralization is a much-awaited answer that users are looking for due to their declining trust in large corporations. With data becoming an integral part of our day-to-day lives, it is only necessary to ensure it does not become monopolized in the same manner as that of several other industries.
Projects like Streamr bring an important answer to the problem, giving users the utmost possession and freedom over their data. Streamr allows users to access data in real-time, which empowers the existing infrastructure by allowing it to become more decentralized.
Streamr is bringing this power transfer to individuals, all while improving user privacy, resilience, fault tolerance, and efficiency. This will help the future of the internet to become more connected and decentralized, with the users having more freedom over their data and power over important decisions.
The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI technologies has been meteoric in the past two years. For some tech-savvy people, every morning begins with the help of AI, from the smart alarm that tracks their sleep cycle to the news app that curates articles based on their interests.
But behind these seamless conveniences lies a hidden reality – these technologies are part of a growing energy crisis. As AI technologies like generative AI advance, they are not just transforming our lives; they’re demanding a huge share of the world’s electricity.
Impact of AI on Energy InfrastructuresThe challenge is stark. As one of the most energy-intensive modern IT endeavors, AI systems require considerable carbon emissions and electricity. Indeed, the world might not be ready for their demands.
In 2023, the world became acquainted with the implications of generative AI, and by 2024, its utilization in various sectors magnified. Hence, data centers that power these AI models are becoming massive consumers of electricity.
Indeed, Forbes noted that GPT-4 required over 50 gigawatt-hours to train—equivalent to 0.02% of California’s annual electricity production. Moreover, it requires 50 times more energy than its predecessor, GPT-3.
The statistics are staggering. Globally, data centers and their transmission networks now contribute to 3% of global energy consumption, emitting as much carbon dioxide as Brazil.
Moreover, the escalating energy requirements show no signs of abating. According to an International Energy Agency (IEA) projection, global electricity demand will surge from 460 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2022 to 1000 TWh by 2026.
Read more: How To Build Your Personal AI Chatbot Using the ChatGPT API
Global Electricity Demand Projections. Source: IEAIn the United States alone, the power demand from data centers is expected to increase from 200 TWh in 2022 to 260 TWh by 2026, marking a 6% share of the country’s total power usage. Projections suggest this demand will double by 2030.
Amid this backdrop, Ayush Ranjan, CEO of Huddle01, highlighted in an interview with BeInCrypto the urgent need for solutions like DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network).
“AI data centers require a substantial amount of electricity for computation and cooling. If AI applications continue to grow at the current rate, we will see a significant strain on both local and global energy grids that will prove unsustainable. This burden will continue to increase as AI systems get more and more complex with time. This will again lead to higher emissions and grid instability,” Ranjan explained.
The geographic clustering of data centers compounds the challenges. For instance, Northern Virginia hosts the largest hub of data centers globally, consuming electricity equivalent to that of 800,000 homes. This concentration creates dangerous fluctuations in power demand, posing severe risks to energy infrastructures.
How DePIN Solves the ChallengesIn response, DePIN offers a promising solution by leveraging underutilized hardware resources to distribute computational tasks more efficiently. By decentralizing energy consumption and incentivizing the use of edge computing, DePIN networks could significantly alleviate the energy burden imposed by AI, offering a pathway to more sustainable and democratized access to AI resources.
Ranjan further elucidated that DePINs distribute energy consumption and workload, easing the burden on any single point. Instead of relying on huge centralized data centers, DePIN deploys multiple nodes—often utilizing underused infrastructure to offload computations closer to end-users.
“This reduces the workload on servers and spreads energy consumption more evenly across regions, easing the burden on energy grids,” Ranjan told BeInCrypto.
Currently, 84% of the data centers are concentrated around the United States, Europe, and China, making data transfers less energy efficient. However, edge computing, integral to DePIN, minimizes long-distance, energy-intensive data transfers typical of centralized data centers.
“Splitting the energy consumption across multiple devices and regions, reducing the load on data centers and energy grids by leveraging existing devices or resources to build the network will prove critical in solving this issue,” Ranjan affirmed.
Read more: What Is DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks)?
Data Centers Distribution. Source: Synergy Research GroupDePin Projects Addressing AI’s DemandsAccording to Ranjan, several DePIN projects, like Filecoin Green, Akash Network, Render, and Grass, focus on addressing AI’s energy demands.
Notably, the Daylight Energy project, backed by prominent venture capitalist firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), aims to transform energy grid operations through distributed energy resources (DERs). This initiative enhances grid responsiveness and facilitates sustainable energy practices by leveraging real-time data from DERs such as solar panels and smart batteries.
Moreover, on September 10, Daylight Energy announced a partnership with DIMO Network to enable electric vehicles (EVs) to support power grids. This collaboration utilizes DIMO’s EV application programming interfaces (APIs) to integrate EVs into the energy management ecosystem, thereby facilitating clean energy usage and real-time energy management for all EV owners.
DePIN networks also solve other challenges of centralized infrastructure, such as frequent outages. For instance, a recent IT outage involving Microsoft and CrowdStrike disrupted major services worldwide. However, DePIN networks are less susceptible to such outages because they do not have a single point of failure.
Currently, the total market capitalization of DePIN projects stands above $20.5 billion. Additionally, the total number of DePIN devices has crossed 18 million. However, DePIN still faces scalability challenges as the mainstream adoption of these networks requires high computational power.
“Many DePINs rely on a mix of devices, from low-powered edge devices to small-scale data centers. Scaling the network and coordinating the deployed resources to match the computational power of a centralized data center remains a formidable industry challenge,” Ranjan noted.
Read more: Top 10 Web3 Projects That Are Revolutionizing the Industry
DePIN Market Cap, Volume, and Total Devices. Source: DePINscanHowever, while the idea of DePIN rescuing the world from a global energy crisis remains nascent, further innovation and adoption are essential. Ranjan believes that token incentives can help bring more adoption.
“Because of hardware limitations of edge devices to handle AI workload, wide adoption is crucial for any DePIN to scale and see a mainstream use case. Token incentives help drive intent to use and participate,” Ranjan concluded.
Indeed, as AI’s energy demands soar, DePIN offers a vital solution by decentralizing the computational load. It could substantially reduce the strain on global power infrastructures.
DePIN networks promise a more sustainable approach to managing the rising energy requirements of advanced AI systems by harnessing underused hardware and edge computing. This strategy could potentially avert an energy crisis and foster more equitable access to technology.
