Protocol Labs is an open-source research and development laboratory for crypto network protocols. The lab has projects that will change the way of the internet. Filecoin and IPFS are the two most famous examples!
Open source organizations have done wonders over the last three decades in the world of computer science. Linux is a testament to open-source software. With the invention of Bitcoin, numerous open-source organizations like Ethereum, Hyperledger Foundation, Hydrachain, Eris etc have sprung up. These organizations have used the efforts of their community to develop amazing projects that have gone ahead to do wonders. Protocol Labs is one such organization. Let’s dive into it!
What is Protocol Labs?
Protocol Labs (PL) was founded in 2014 by Juan Benet in order to improve the offerings of blockchain technology. Consequently, improving the improve the internet. Protocol Labs is also a part of the YCombinator S14 Program. At Protocol Labs’ core, it is an open-source research, deployment and development laboratory for network protocols. Over the past several years, they have worked extensively on crypto projects that push human capabilities through technology. Their well-established projects include IPFS, Filecoin, libp2p, Testground, IPLD, Multiformats, SourceCred, ProtoSchools and drand. Collectively, these projects will help us in building robust foundations for our digital future.
The firm itself boosts to be a fully distributed company. Now, what they mean by this is that their team (of more than 100 members) work remotely. Mostly working in the open to improve the internet as new advances happen in the computing world. They have a wide array of collaborations with firms across the sector. Some of their partnerships include Brave, ChainSafe, Dapper, Dover, Fleek and Wolfram.
Protocol Labs projects: IPFS
The two main projects, IPFS and Filecoin were in the pipeline in 2013, even before Protocol Labs had started. These two projects led to the creation of Protocol Labs a year later. Let’s go over them one by one!
First IPFS, a protocol that helps to store, address and transfer data peer-to-peer. It has been designed to replace the classical HTTP from the face of the web. It uses a content-addressing to identify and link the information instead of using the HTTP protocol. IPFS currently serves millions of end-users and developers. You can find the IPFS paper here!
Protocol Labs projects: Filecoin
Finally, Filecoin, a decentralized storage network that is powered by cryptocurrency. It uses the free space on its users’ devices and allow other users to save data. It also keeps the data secure. In return, the users can also earn Filecoin tokens in exchange for the storage service. It is literally Airbnb for storage space. It is also one of the leading projects in the cryptocurrency world right now! You can find the Filecoin paper here!
