The popular Ethereum Foundation website Ethereum.org is now operating on the Interplanetary File System (IPFS), according to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. Many users confuse the IPFS as a blockchain network. The closest system resembling IPFS is the HTTP; simply put, IPFS is a decentralized version of the web.
The https://t.co/KSm7V48P4y website is now on IPFS and accessible via ENS at ethereum.eth. https://t.co/BBO4BAX0fT
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) March 31, 2020
IPFS is not a blockchain, but it can interoperate with a blockchain
The IPFS itself is not a blockchain. It is a distributed protocol of nodes that allow users to store and transfer data in a peer-to-peer manner.
For instance, if one user requests a piece of data on the IPFS network, the node of the data uploader then shares the information with the node that requests it.
As ProtoSchool describes it:
“As a peer-to-peer data storage system, IPFS allows each user (peer) to host whatever data they’d like locally. When you first add new content to IPFS, you’re really just setting it up on your own machine in a format suitable for sharing via the IPFS protocol.”
When a user uploads data to the Ethereum network, as an example, the data is then embedded into the blocks of the blockchain, stored on the blockchain.
However, on IPFS, the data is stored locally on the system of the uploader, and is shared to other users on the protocol.
Structurally, the IPFS is more similar to a torrent protocol than a blockchain network. The main advantage of the IPFS is that unlike the Bittorrent protocol, as an example, it works as a swarm of node operators, making data processing more efficient.
Here’s why IPFS works well with blockchain
On an immutable blockchain network like Ethereum, IPFS users can upload links to the data stored on the IPFS protocol to Ethereum. Since they are merely links, they do not impose significant pressure on the blockchain network like raw data would.
IPFS was also designed in a way that allows it to seamlessly interoperate with blockchain networks, and make them readily accessible.
The IPFS website reads:
“IPFS lets you address large amounts of data and place the immutable, permanent links into blockchain transactions. This timestamps and secures content without having to put the data itself on the chain.”
Over the long run, as the trend shifts from centralized to decentralized systems starting with the shift from normal currencies to Bitcoin, IPFS and the decentralized web would provide an alternative to the existing web system.
Some countries, like Russia and China, have already to develop a centralized version of the HTTP called the Chinese New IP, which makes systems like IPFS more favorable.
