Protocol Labs is the company behind Filecoin, IPFS, and several other foundational protocols for the decentralized web. Founded in 2014 by Juan Benet, the organization operates as a research lab and open-source development house focused on building infrastructure for a more open internet.
IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) is perhaps the company’s most widely adopted technology. It’s a peer-to-peer file-sharing protocol that addresses content by its cryptographic hash rather than its server location. This means files are retrieved from whichever node has them, not from a single central server. IPFS is used by NFT platforms, decentralized websites, and various blockchain projects for off-chain data storage.
Filecoin, built on top of IPFS, adds economic incentives to decentralized storage. Storage providers earn FIL tokens by committing hard drive space and proving they’re reliably storing client data. The network launched in October 2020 after one of the largest ICOs in history, raising over $200 million in 2017. Filecoin’s storage network holds exabytes of data, though critics note that much of it is incentivized test data rather than organic demand.
Protocol Labs also developed libp2p (a networking stack used by Ethereum and other chains), Drand (distributed randomness), and funds research through various grant programs. The organization has over 300 employees working on what it calls the “knowledge graph” — interconnected protocols for storing, addressing, and computing over humanity’s information. The FIL token has maintained a multi-billion dollar market cap despite significant price volatility since launch.
