On May 28, 2020, the Filecoin team hosted our second Filecoin Mining Community Call; we were joined by over 160 live attendees globally.

To kick off the call, Filecoin Ecosystem Lead Colin Evran provided an update on the Filecoin project including an overview of our growing miner ecosystem and some of the important use cases we’re seeing emerge. Filecoin Founder Juan Benet followed with a presentation highlighting an introduction to Verified Clients in Filecoin. Next, Jonathan Victor presented on Filecoin Discover – a project incentivizing early miners of all sizes to store valuable data from non-profits and open source projects in exchange for additional Filecoin. (Read more about it here). We also heard from Ian Darrow, who provided a teaser for Testnet Incentives— more details to come soon! To conclude, Aayush Rajasekaran answered your most frequently asked questions. Find the overview of the questions and answers below.

Your mining questions, Answered!

Most questions and answers are quoted directly; some are edited for readability.

Is mainnet launch expected to take place on time?

Yes, you can follow our progress on the public mainnet roadmap.

What’s your progress on determining how verifiers and verified clients will work?

We’re working on a “faucet” for small scale testing of verified clients. Expect details on verifiers and the process for becoming a verified client, as we approach mainnet launch. If you are storing real data on Filecoin for an actual use case, not to worry – becoming a verified client will be easy.

When do you expect the final specs for pledge collateral to be revealed?

We’re continuing to refine Filecoin’s cryptoeconomic models. We’re aiming to release rough parameters in June and final parameters in July.

When will the test network competition start? Will there be an incentive mechanism?

The competition will start five weeks before mainnet launch. Significant Filecoin rewards will be available. Please note, miners must be prepared to store files and serve retrieval requests to participate in the incentives program.

How big is the possibility of using Narrow Stacked Expander (NSE) in the official network? When will a white paper on NSE algorithms be available?

Filecoin will launch with Stacked Depth Robust (SDR). Research continues on Narrow Stacked Expander (NSE) and other alternatives. In general, miners should strongly expect that there will be many proofs upgrades over the life of the network, including soon after launch, to improve efficiency and security.

Will verified client deals, such as those from Filecoin Discover or others, help with the testnet incentive competition?

No.

Are FIL rewards fixed per tipset or per block? Will a miner receive a fixed number FIL for a block, or will the reward be shared among the block in a tipset?

It’s per-block; every block wins the same reward, regardless of how many other blocks are in the tipset.

How many blocks will be included in each tipset on average?

Five.

How can I make a Committed Capacity Sector and do I still need to use it to seal my garbage data to get power? Or do I get power to mine blocks as soon as I make a Committed Capacity Sector?

Any sector without deals will be treated as a Committed Capacity sector. There is little difference in block rewards between CC sectors and sectors storing data from non-verified clients (Note: miners can earn deal fees without lock-up from unverified client deals).

Hardware recommendations for mining rigs – any motherboard and CPU suggestions, or guidelines?

We don’t provide official recommendations. There are some community-submitted benchmarks here: https://filecoin-benchmarks.on.fleek.co/

What’s the difference between 32GiB and 64GiB sectors? Are there any miners mining 64GiB sectors?

64GiB sectors are slightly more efficient to mine and add to the chain, but require better hardware and take longer to unseal. We have seen some miners mining 64GiB sectors.

From the current Power Table, the top 3 miners take most of the storage power. Is this a concern for you?

No, the current testnet isn’t a race to gain storage power. There is a lot of storage power “sitting on the sidelines” for now until we get closer to mainnet launch.

Will the Testnet Phase 2 be reset? If so, when?

Yes, definitely at least once, and maybe more. The timing will depend on development and what upgrades are required.

Watch the video from the session here. We look forward to hosting more Mining Community Calls as we gear up for Mainnet launch! In the meantime, stay tuned for updates on the Filecoin blog. You can also find us on Wechat (ID: Filecoin-Official), the Filecoin Slack, and by following us on Twitter. We truly appreciate your participation and your continued support of the Filecoin project!