ConsenSys Labs, an organization that aims to solve real-world problems with Ethereum blockchain-based solutions for enterprises, announced on July 30, 2020 that it’s accepting applications for the Filecoin Launchpad Accelerator, which is being powered by Tachyon, an accelerator program by ConsenSys Ventures that takes early-stage initiatives from idea to “viable MVP.”
As mentioned in a release shared with CI:
“This cohort will be focused on startups building more open, interoperable, and programmable tools, infrastructure, and applications for the distributed web through IPFS and Filecoin.”
It added:
“Throughout Fall 2020, between 15 and 20 teams will be provided twelve weeks of funding, mentorship, benefits, and programming around business and blockchain-specific issues, culminating in a Demo Day and post-program fundraising support.”
The teams get the opportunity to leverage access to the ConsenSys and Protocol Labs networks and their professional expertise, ranging from blockchain industry entrepreneurs and legal advisors to experienced technical researchers.
As confirmed in the announcement, each team will get $80,000 in funding. Teams may apply here. The deadline for submitting applications is August 21, 2020.
ConsenSys Labs’ Tachyon accelerator will be co-supported by Protocol Labs. Established in 2014, Protocol Labs aims to serve as an open-source R&D and deployment laboratory. Its notable projects include InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), Filecoin, and libp2p.
IPFS’ goal is to offer a “fully distributed” web, where apps don’t reside on centralized servers. Instead, they run over a network consisting of users’ computers. IPFS intends to establish a “resilient, upgradable, open” network to support an accessible and “sustainable” web infrastructure.
As explained in the release:
“Instead of trying to find content by who is hosting it, [people using IPFS] search for the content itself. This means both faster and cheaper retrieval of data, no more reliance on centralized servers, and even an ability to access the web while offline.”
IPFS’ economic incentive layer is a network token called Filecoin (FIL), which rewards or incentives miners to compete to “properly store encrypted data on the Filecoin network.”
Since conducting its crowdsale back in 2017, Protocol Labs has reportedly been working on the protocol and getting ready for its upcoming launch. Filecoin’s testnet currently contains 25 PiB of storage, many different data storage providers and applications being built on the protocol, and more than 1,350 open-source software developers who are contributing code to the protocol
The Filecoin incentivized testnet is expected to go live during the week of August 3, 2020, with the public mainnet is scheduled for launch during Q3 2020.
The Filecoin Launchpad will offer funding, mentorship opportunities, and programming in order to promote the adoption of Filecoin within the Ethereum and DeFi space.
The Launchpad will also aim to attract web developers who are interested in working with an “efficiently” priced and geographically distributed storage network.
Protocol Labs is an open-source R&D lab that develops decentralized protocols, tools, and services to improve the internet. Some of Protocol Labs’ main projects include IPFS, Filecoin, and libp2p. The Filecoin Project aims to serve as a decentralized storage network with the state goal of developing a “decentralized, efficient, and robust” foundation for humanity’s information.