Filecoin is in a mess in the country.
There are at least 200-300 domestic mining machine sellers;
80-90% of recent activities in the circle, whether online AMA or offline activities, are related to Filecoin;
Media coverage of Filecoin is getting denser...
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Mining machine manufacturers
When it comes to Filecoin, the first thing people in the circle think of is the picture of mining nodes grabbing the top mines, showing off their muscles on the test list, and large and small mining machine manufacturers selling mining machines and cloud computing power.
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Mining machine manufacturers are "flooding", but not too many will persist until the end
The media chain catcher once reported that there are at least 200-300 domestic Filecoin mining machine sellers;
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Image source: Wu Shuo Blockchain
Why are there so many mining machine manufacturers? One is that "research and development" of mining machines and selling of mining machines are generally considered to be a profitable thing. On the other hand, the threshold for "research and development" of Filecoin mining machines is relatively low, which also leads to the unevenness of good and bad mining machine manufacturers on the market.
Although there are many Filecoin mining machine manufacturers, after the mainnet goes online, the number of mining factories that can stably mine is very limited. This is the general view of the interviewees.
Shawn, the founder of 1475Fund and an angel investor of 1475 Tianru Technology, told Beep News that more than 90% of the mining machine manufacturers are marketing or even CX, and there are no more than 20 companies that actually do business, and no more than 5 companies that are technically competitive. VCs pay attention and invest even less.
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Mining machine manufacturers compete, what are they fighting for?
Why can mining activities filter out so many mining machine manufacturers after the mainnet goes online?
Because Filecoin mining has high requirements for the team's technical ability, whether the funds are sustainable, and the stability of mining, it is like a marathon, and the competition among mining factories is actually time-weighted.
Colin said that when he screens mining machine companies, he will first look at their establishment time. The team must be able to pay attention to the Filecoin track for a long time and be familiar with the test network code, so that it is possible to optimize hardware and algorithms.
When talking about the competitiveness of Filecoin mining machine manufacturers, Li Peicai, the co-founder of Shanghai Diyi, also said that technical capabilities, especially packaging speed, are very important. The so-called encapsulation speed refers to the speed at which Filecoin mining stores files during the Proof of Replication (PoRep) stage.
"The major mining machine manufacturers will not have much difference in storage capacity. The main difference lies in the calculation. Here is a very core indicator. For every 10,000 yuan invested, how many files can be packaged per hour, and the unit It is G/hour/10,000 yuan (that is, the packaging speed), and the mining machine manufacturers that do a good job, this value is above 10, and the value that is not doing well is 4-10.”
That is to say, if mining machine manufacturers are to be reliable and survive, they must have technical hard power. Secondly, whether the funds can maintain the continuous operation of the mining plant is also an important factor to measure whether the mining machine manufacturers have long-term competitiveness.
The reason for saying this is because mining machine manufacturers are actually quite expensive.
They have to do mining tests and rent IDC computer rooms. If they take detours during the research and development process (for example, they deployed intel chips in the early stage and found that they cannot be used), it means a loss of funds. "The team must have funds to burn", this factor can also screen out some mining machine manufacturers.
Another very important factor is the team's operation and maintenance capabilities, that is, whether it can not drop the line, continue to produce blocks, and stabilize mining.
Miners who pay attention to Filecoin know that Filecoin mining has a pledge and punishment mechanism. For example, if a miner fails to submit a proof of space-time (PoST, proving that the files that need to be stored have been continuously stored) on time, if the situation is serious, it may lead to the FIL pledged by the miner. is deducted, the storage computing power is cleared.
Shawn, the founder of 1475Fund and an angel investor of 1475 Tianru Technology, once repeatedly emphasized the importance of stable mining in an online AMA on Beep News. "Operation and maintenance, security, stability, and pit filling plans are very important, very important, very important! Don't just look at mining efficiency, if you are not stable on your feet, clear them all."
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Homogenization of services by mining machine manufacturers?
Users who have a rough understanding of the mining solutions provided by mining machine manufacturers may find that mining factories are often involved in multiple businesses such as mining machine research and development, mining machine sales, mine hosting, mining pool operation and maintenance, and cloud computing power. Are the services provided by major mining machine manufacturers similar, or even have a tendency of "homogenization"?
For this question, Beep News asked some industry practitioners, and the answer was no. In fact, major mining machine manufacturers are making relevant layouts based on their own resource advantages.
Colin, a partner of The Force Partners, said that there are differences in the positioning of domestic mining plants, and the specific layout is based on their respective resources and advantages. Colin gave the following examples to Beep News:
If bitcoin miners want to mine FIL, they may not think much about cloud computing power, but tend to do cluster deployment by themselves, and put the machine in the IDC computer room they are familiar with;
Miners without traditional mining background may tend to cooperate with some computing power platforms;
And those who enter this industry with relatively strong sales channels may adopt mining machine sales models such as dumpers or OEMs;
There are also some mining factory platforms with relatively rich resources, which can sell cloud computing power together with exchanges...
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The participation of traditional mines and mining pools is not high
In the matter of Filecoin mining, we can clearly feel a feature, that is, there are almost no traditional mining machine manufacturers and mining pools.
The reason behind it is that there is a big difference between Filecoin and traditional mainstream coins in mining mode and business.
Li Peicai, the co-founder of Shanghai Diyi, told Beep News that Filecoin mining machines use some general-purpose parts, and miners buy finished parts to assemble, without much technical content, which does not match the advantages of traditional Bitcoin mining machine manufacturers.
"According to my understanding, several major domestic bitcoin mining machine manufacturers may not have participated." Li Peicai said.
When it comes to the layout of mining pools, some interviewees told Beep News that although there are many mining solution providers on the market that provide mining pool services, there is actually not much demand for “clustered mining pools” in the market.
The contact person of a leading mining pool also agrees with this point of view, he said: "Filecoin is mainly used for mining equipment and computer rooms, which have nothing to do with the main business of the mining pool, so even if the traditional mining pool has a layout for Filecoin, it will not It’s the boss who is investing for fun. It is difficult for Filecoin to be a mining pool. The Filecoin ecology of 1475, Force Zone, Renren Mine, Interstellar Continental, Jinse Finance, etc. is actually cloud computing power, and Filecoin is more suitable for cloud computing power .”
Of course, traditional mining pools also pay attention to Filecoin, but they must first break through the critical line of "possibility of realizing mining pools" before deploying.
Investment agency
Investment agency
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Filecoin investment logic
By communicating with some professional investors and practitioners who are very experienced in mining and investment, Beep News learned some interesting investment logic.
Li Peicai, the co-founder of Shanghai Diyi, mentioned the concept of "profit-loss ratio" to BEE News. He believes that investing in Filecoin mining is a business with "good profit-loss ratio".
The Filecoin mining solutions on the market can generally be divided into two types, one is "packaged", and the prices of various sub-services, such as mining hardware and software solutions, are often opaque;
The other is the "separation of software and hardware", where hardware and software services are quoted and charged separately. This solution is easier to judge the premium of the hardware, and the mined coins should be shared with the software provider. This information is also relatively clear.
The advantage of choosing the "soft and hard separation plan" is that if the investment falls short of expectations, the loss can be relatively controlled. As long as it is ensured that the hardware does not have a high premium at the beginning of the purchase, even if the FIL is reduced to zero, the miners can recover 60% to 70% of the cost by selling the hardware and obtain the "residual value".
In the case of FIL currency price performance is acceptable (maintain the current futures price, or slightly lower than the current price), "Filecoin's mining profits are very large."
In other words, under the premise of choosing the right mining solution, investing in Filecoin mining can achieve 60-70% capital preservation, "if you make a profit, you can also earn 1-2 times."
Li Peicai, the co-founder of Shanghai Diyi, analyzed the profit and loss range of Filecoin mining from the perspective of "profit-loss ratio", while Colin, a partner of The Force Partners, judged the investment in a certain mining machine manufacturer based on the establishment time of the mining machine manufacturer and the demand for return on capital. is it suitable.
Colin said that he generally chooses mining machine manufacturers established from May 2019 to early 2020. Mining plants that have been established for a short time are not familiar with the Filecoin track and code, and their technical capabilities are not guaranteed;
Mining plants that have been established for too long have a high probability of going through some detours, and the initial capital investment will be relatively large. They may recover part of the initial investment cost through some methods.
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Investment Case
Beep News learned that the investment of investment institutions in the Filecoin field will generally focus on mining machine manufacturers.
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Source of information: Odaily
According to the information provided by the interviewees, HashKey and Fenbushi Capital are relatively active participants.
HashKey Investment Director Yu told Beep News that the company’s attention to Filecoin began in the second half of last year. At present, HashKey mainly deploys Filecoin mining and invested 1475, and will pay attention to the application of Filecoin in the future.
As for Fenbushi Capital, Beep News learned that this company had a relatively early layout for Filecoin. They participated in Filecoin's ICO, and their positions are not light, and they have a relatively deep relationship with Filecoin's project party "Protocol Lab".
Sun Ming, a partner of Fenbushi Capital, said in a recent roundtable event that "Filecoin deserves Fenbushi Capital to invest the largest resources in its ecology."
In addition, Sun Ming also said that Fenbushi Capital invested in a mining machine manufacturer this year and is also preparing to invest in more companies. The investment strategy of Fenbushi Capital is to invest in mining machine manufacturers first, and then make judgments based on the development of the industry, gradually infiltrating the layout into Filecoin mines, mining pools, and even IDC computer rooms.
In fact, some investors or investment institutions interviewed by Beep News regard "mining machine" as the first step in the deployment of Filecoin, because making a mining machine is currently a more profitable way, and the certainty is higher.
exchange
exchange
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Filecoin exchange business
Xu Kun, chief strategy officer of OKEx, told Beep News that the secondary market has had FIL futures trading as early as 2018, and now there are more than 10 mainstream exchanges at home and abroad that have launched FIL futures.
The types of trading assets of FIL are also constantly being enriched. Recently, OKEx launched the FIL/USDT perpetual contract, becoming the first head exchange to launch FIL contract products; Gate.io opened FIL leveraged lending and wealth management services in June; there are still FIL of different lengths in the market Futures, 3, 6, 12, 36 months are available.
In addition to the general trading business, there are also some exchanges that have deployed the Filecoin cloud computing power track, such as Whale Exchange, Tiger Talisman, ZB, etc. The deployment of cloud computing power on exchanges is generally carried out in cooperation with mining machine manufacturers.
On the one hand, mining machine manufacturers can give full play to their professional advantages in mining hardware research and development and software optimization. On the other hand, because exchanges have user resources, cloud computing power can better reach users.
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Filcoin hype, bubbles and investment outlook
There is no doubt about the popularity of Filecoin, but at the same time, the market's voice for Filecoin also contains doubts.
Xie Dapao, CEO of Feierke and evangelist of IPFS in China, said that in the short term, everyone is a little too enthusiastic about Filecoin;
An early digital currency investor, Mr. Bi, expressed his concern about selling pressure in the last issue of Beep News article "Conflict of Filecoin Head Mine Opinions".
After the launch of the main network, whether Filecoin can make a smooth transition in the secondary market investment and transaction level, and whether market sentiment and capital inflow can support the price of the token is still difficult to determine.
In fact, the popularity of Filecoin may be suspected of being inflated. At present, market participants, whether they are miners, investors or traditional mining pools, are mostly in a "wait and see" state, and their emotions are more cautious.
Shawn, the founder of 1475Fund and an angel investor of 1475 Tianru Technology, told Beep News that most of the users who come to 1475 to buy mining machines are people from other industries in the traditional circle, and few people from the currency circle participate.
The reason behind this, according to Shawn, is that people in the currency circle are afraid of being cut off. "In the past two years, most people have lost money, investing one and losing one, and constantly losing money. Human emotions and reason are limited. Yes, so people in the currency circle are basically not optimistic about all currencies.”
"But sometimes the secondary market is like this. The currency price rises in doubt, and when everyone thinks that they can make money and want to come in, it falls in hope."
But from an optimistic point of view, hype and bubbles are not all bad things. As Shawn said, moderate bubbles and hype are an important boost for new things to overcome the cold start trap.
Colin, a partner of The Force Partners, believes that in the financial market of gaming, there are no two situations, such as the chicken feathers and the happy situation.
For a project like Filecoin with a complex system and huge capital and participants, there will definitely be some surprises in the market. However, through in-depth research on structural opportunities and calm participation based on one's own resource advantages, there will definitely be huge profitees.
The Filecoin mainnet is expected to be launched from August 31 to September 21. As the mainnet launch approaches, Filecoin's popularity is getting higher and higher, and at the same time, it is being questioned more and more.
But there is no doubt that the launch of the Filecoin mainnet will be the highlight moment of the encrypted branch—distributed storage. It means that the application has landed, and the encrypted world has made an attempt to connect with the real world. In any case, this will be an important moment !
Note: The content in this article is not intended as investment advice. Beep News hereby reminds readers to pay attention to the risks of cryptocurrency investment.
