Why Does the Process of Minting SFT Take So Long?
With the SFT protocol testnet being announced, we’ve recorded a lot of interest, as shown by the overwhelming participation. So far, we’ve received constructive feedback and questions, one of which is why the minting of SFT takes a long time to complete. Well, for the most part, it deals with the underlying infrastructure of the Filecoin blockchain. To begin, let’s walk through the modus operandi of the Filecoin blockchain.
Filecoin is a decentralized cloud storage network that aims to create a global marketplace for storage that is secure, affordable, and reliable. Filecoin uses blockchain technology to create a decentralized storage network where users can buy and sell storage space directly with each other. Storage providers offer storage space in exchange for FIL tokens, while clients pay FIL tokens to store their data on the network.
Considering its operating principles, Filecoin adopts Proof-of-Replication and Proof-of-Spacetime as the basis of consensus as to the incentive layer of IPFS. Its operating mode is to encapsulate blocks; that is, only miners who successfully encapsulate data are eligible to obtain the rights of the block. The storage is highly correlated with the encapsulation success rate.
Now, I would like to draw your attention to the word “encapsulation” as this can be linked to the hashrate — the speed at which a blockchain makes calculations. The process of encapsulation on the Filecoin blockchain can take varying amounts of time, depending on several factors. These factors include the size of the data being encapsulated, the number of nodes storing the data, and the network’s current level of congestion. On average, the encapsulation process on Filecoin takes a few hours to a day to complete. The process involves encrypting the data and dividing it into multiple sectors, which are then stored on different nodes within the network. This redundancy ensures that the data is available even if some nodes fail or go offline.
The encapsulation process has a significant impact on other projects within the Filecoin ecosystem. For example, the PoRep mechanism used to verify data replication is also used in other projects, such as the IPFS (InterPlanetary File System), which is a peer-to-peer network for storing and sharing files. As it pertains to the minting of SFT, this is very much the case. The encapsulation period for the minting of SFT ranges from 12–24 hours and could be more owing to the number of SFTs that need to be minted at this point in time. This is one of the reasons why we’ve decided to host a testnet campaign to stress-test the protocol’s capabilities to handle all these transactions. Now, we do implore that participants exercise patience as they go about testing the protocol. We are definite that this will not be the case going into the mainnet.
To date, thousands of addresses have completed the testnet following our tutorial and given feedback to us. Our team is delighted and looking forwards to more and more community volunteers and value creators for the SFT ecosystem! Stay tuned as there are more surprises waiting for early adopters who help the protocol grow!
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