Filecoin

Filecoin is a cryptocurrency that is paid and received in exchange for decentralized data storage services.

Okay, now once more in English: Filecoin is kind of like the VRBO of the digital storage world. (That was English?) If we own a computer but we’re not using all of its available storage, we can rent it out, like homeowners do with their houses. What this means is that our computer will be used to temporarily store itty bitty encrypted fragments of other people’s data that, for whatever reason, they don’t want to store in one piece on their own machines or in their own clouds. When we provide that storage space, we get paid in Filecoin, which we can then convert to other currencies, both digital (like Bitcoin) and old-school (like dollars).

The owners of those documents, or renters, if we’re sticking to our VRBO analogy, which we are, also pay for the service in Filecoin. This allows all of these transactions to happen quickly and painlessly, regardless of where people are physically located. No need to convert yen to dollars; no need to write a check or wire money. Nope, with FIlecoin, renters can pay and owners can get paid with little to no muss or fuss. And those renters can sleep soundly knowing that their data is safely decentralized and encrypted so only they can see it.