Crypto Exchanges Prep for Filecoin’s Long-Awaited Mainnet Launch

Filecoin, the distributed file sharing that lets users rent out other people’s computer space, will launch its long-awaited mainnet—and along with it, its token, FIL—tomorrow. 

At precisely block 148,888, predicted to be mined tomorrow, the network will launch. As of this writing, we’re at block 146,197. The event marks one of the most highly anticipated launches in the crypto industry in some time, and rather than waiting for the network and its token to go live, some exchanges are already preparing to list the coin.

Kraken, Gemini, and Huobi—some of the more prominent crypto exchanges in the industry—are confirmed to support the coin at launch. Decrypt has asked other major cryptocurrency exchanges if they will support the coin at launch and will update this piece should we hear back. 

Futures for Filecoin—i.e. contracts that will deliver the token upon launch tomorrow—trade for $32 at the moment, with a daily trading volume of $36 million, according to metrics site CoinGecko.

Filecoin is kind of like a decentralized Dropbox, OneDrive or Google Drive. Instead of passing your data to a third-party, who stores it on the cloud—in reality, its own machines stashed in data centers—Filecoin’s peer-to-peer protocol that lets you rent out space on the computers of other users. 

The idea is to reduce reliance on parties like Dropbox. Data is encrypted and impervious to government backdoors. It’s all powered by the network’s eponymous coin, Filecoin (or FIL on exchanges). You buy space with FIL, and the network pays out people renting out their harddrives in FIL, too. 

The mainnet has been a long time coming. It’s been three years since the company creating Filecoin, Protocol Labs, raised $205 million in an ICO.  The company encountered delay after delay. Filecoin’s mainnet was supposed to launch in spring of last year, but that date got pushed back to March, and then October 15. 

Filecoin started an incentivized testnet for the blockchain on August 24. This means that participants could earn real cryptocurrency. Now, all eyes will be on its official launch, and whether the project can live up to the hype.