A recent report by Messari reveals that Filecoin, a decentralized storage protocol, has seen an increase in storage deals on its network. Currently, the protocol averages 954.2 pebibytes (1.07 billion gigabytes) worth of storage deals, while its raw storage capacity stands at 12.2 exbibytes (14.1 billion gigabytes). This surge in uptake comes after a period of slow adoption due to comparatively high storage costs when compared to centralized alternatives like Amazon Web Services.
Despite a decline in revenue in dollar terms, the protocol generated 2.5 million of its own Filecoin tokens, equivalent to $11.5 million, during the most recent quarter. This represents a decrease of 40.7% compared to the same quarter last year. However, the decline can be attributed in part to the sharp drop in the price of FIL tokens during the cryptocurrency bear market of 2022. On the positive side, there has been a significant increase in active storage deals, mitigating the overall revenue decline.
Supply-side revenue, which includes earnings from block rewards, anchored storage deals, and transaction tips, experienced a substantial 66.9% year-over-year decline to $85.7 million in Q2 2023. To encourage adoption, many storage providers have started offering near-zero fee storage services.
Filecoin data storage
When examining the types of data stored on Filecoin, the information technology sector accounts for the majority at 41%, followed by natural resources (31.3%), healthcare (16.7%), and social services (9.2%). The protocol has successfully onboarded 1,750 clients who have utilized the platform for their data storage needs.
To cater to storage retrieval requirements, Filecoin is developing Project Saturn, a content delivery network (CDN) for Filecoin and IPFS (InterPlanetary File System). Project Saturn aims to provide fast and cost-effective content delivery services to Filecoin’s retrieval market.
In March, the platform introduced the Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM), which brings Ethereum-style smart contracts to the network. Since its launch, over 2,300 smart contracts have been deployed on FVM, contributing to 7% of the blockchain’s gas fees in Q2 2023. This development highlights the growing adoption and utilization of smart contracts within the platform’s ecosystem.
