Filecoin

FIL is the coin of Filecoin, a decentralised storage network, used to pay fees and storage and as collateral for providers.

Filecoin is a public blockchain for storing data. People and companies pay storage providers to keep their files, and providers must regularly prove that they still hold the data. The network was created by Protocol Labs and its mainnet went live on 15 October 2020. FIL is the native token: it pays transaction fees and storage deals, and providers lock it as collateral that can be cut if they fail.

The supply of FIL is capped at 2 billion. 70% is set aside for storage providers as block rewards, 15% went to Protocol Labs, 5% to the Filecoin Foundation and 10% to fundraising, mostly the 2017 token sale. On 27 September 2026 about 915 million FIL were circulating by the network's own measure, and about 43 million FIL had been burnt through fees and penalties. The six-year vesting of the Protocol Labs and Foundation allocations ends in mid-October 2026, which is expected to sharply cut new supply.

Filecoin stores public datasets, archives and application data. In 2026 the project launched Filecoin Onchain Cloud with on-chain payments, and a storage service priced per terabyte. Paid demand is still small compared with the network's capacity. A pending upgrade (FIP-0118) would change how rewards are shared, moving away from the Fil+ data programme.

No single company runs the network. About 500 storage providers were active in late September 2026. Protocol Labs, the Filecoin Foundation and other teams develop the software, and changes are made through public Filecoin Improvement Proposals.