Filecoin provides distributed storage and cloud services in the global marketplace. It holds the largest market share in the used storage and network capacity. The ecosystem has grown from 40 projects starting in 2021 to more than 330 projects. Now there are more scenarios for Filecoin in different fields, including NFT, Web3, games, metaverse, audio, and video.
Filecoin has received active support from several organizations whose common goals are to develop the Filecoin ecosystem. These organizations joined together to form the Ecosystem Working Group. Their responsibilities include maintaining and upgrading the underlying protocol, supporting ecological growth, and assisting in governance. The best-known members of this working group include Protocol Labs, Filecoin Foundation, and Outercore.
These organizations have been actively building a channel for developers and creators through hackathons, accelerators, grant programs, mentorship programs, and growth support. This channel is designed to help develop projects and teams in early-stage to reach the funding stage. Currently, there are over 330 projects being built on Filecoin and IPFS.
The major goal of Filecoin in 2022 is to allow as many early projects in the ecosystem to become mature businesses, such as entering the D round and subsequent financing rounds. Recently, the Ecosystem Working Group has prioritized efforts to simplify the interactions between end-user & developers and Filecoin, and brought services such as Textile Powergate, Estuary, and NFT.Storage.
In 2022, there are also some notable plans. The launch of the Filecoin Virtual Machine (https://fvm.filecoin.io/) is one of the major events. FVM aims to unlock programmable storage primitives (such as bounties storage, auctions), interoperable cross-chain bridges (such as connecting Ethereum, Solana, and NEAR), data-centric DAOs, and Layer-2 protocols.