IPFS

IPFS powers the distributed web. Today’s internet is inefficient, expensive, and highly centralized. This creates limits not only to performance but to the vision of a free and open web. IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) provides a peer-to-peer hypermedia protocol that’s making the web upgradeable, resilient, and more open than ever by surpassing HTTP. With IPFS, you can launch your file sharing, data storage, and NFT strategies to new worlds and beyond. 

While IPFS isn’t a blockchain, it provides an essential link for web3-powered applications like non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Storing NFTs “on-chain” requires processing, verification, and replication across the blockchain – which can be expensive and unsustainable. Now, you can create freshly-minted NFT tokens for a wide range of unique digital assets and store them efficiently “off-chain” while linking transactions to blockchains like Ethereum. 

• Reduced bandwidth: HTTP downloads files from one server at a time – but peer-to-peer IPFS retrieves pieces from multiple nodes at once, enabling substantial bandwidth savings. With up to 60% savings for video, IPFS makes it possible to efficiently distribute high volumes of data without duplication.
• Resilient networks: IPFS makes it simple to set up resilient networks for mirroring data. Thanks to content addressing, files stored using IPFS are automatically versioned.
• Natively decentralized: Increasing consolidation continues to shift control from the many to the few. IPFS stays true to the original vision of an open, flat web by delivering technology to make that vision a reality.
• Easy to install: IPFS provides a desktop app as well as a simple command-line install. You can also add it to your Chrome or Firefox browser. 
• Developer tools: With IPFS Go implementation, you can get access to core, daemon server, CLI tooling, and more. IPFS is also available in Javascript for building browser-based applications and leveraging Node.js.
• Cluster orchestration: IPFS lets you orchestrate multiple IPFS nodes, so you can automatically allocate, replicate, and track your data as a global pinset distributed among a swarm of peers. 
• Hash-based storage: When you add files to IPFS, they are split into smaller, cryptographically hashed chunks and given unique context identifiers. This helps reduce storage by reusing common chunks and using pins to index content of interest. 
• Store NFTs at scale: IPFS is perfect for storing your galleries of NFTs and other digital assets, using a content identifier (CID) as a permanent record of your file as it exists at any point in time. IPFS allows you to store large files “off-chain” and put immutable, permanent links in transactions that are time-stamped and secure. 
• Resistant to tampering and censorship: If you add a new version of a file to IPFS, its crypto hash is different – generating a new CID. This means any changes to files on IPFS don’t overwrite the original, and files are more difficult to alter or censor.