• The Filecoin Virtual Machine launch has the potential to drive another storage increase

• Users are not particularly elated about the upgrade 

Filecoin [FIL], the decentralized storage system, registered a hike in revenue due to the participation of storage providers and users over the past year. The active involvement of these stakeholders implied that demand and supply both jumped across the board.

Read Filecoin’s [FIL] Price Prediction 2023-2024

According to Messari, the Filecoin supply-side and protocol revenue were able to contribute immensely to the network’s KPIs. Information from the distributed crypto-data library revealed that active storage deals and storage capacity ensured that Filecoin’s storage increased by 1755.7% on a Year-on-Year (YoY) basis.

This hike implied that users now have more space to store data while making it easily retrievable and difficult to censor. However, with the Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM) Mainnet launch approaching, will the project be able to surpass this milestone?

Filecoin maintains that the idea behind the FVM upgrade is to create a runtime environment for smart contracts on the network. This means that users can access an open-data economy while Filecoin becomes fully Ethereum [ETH] Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible. 

As a result, it would translate into a direct launch of ERC-20 tokens on the Filecoin network. In terms of storage, the FVM would provide long-term storage proofs so providers can replicate and repair the blockchain’s defects.

Despite the possibility of better storage performance, the bias towards the Filecoin ecosystem is far from hitting the pinnacle though. As of the time of writing, the weighted sentiment was down to -0.335, based on Santiment’s data.

In interpreting this metric, the on-chain analytic platform took the vast majority of messages and the unique social volume condition. Simply put, the prevailing decline underlined that Filecoin has been seeing more negative commentary than otherwise.

However, the project’s social dominance hit highs on two separate occasions— 1 and 4 March. This, despite being reduced to 0.162% at press time. 

The trend of this metric indicates the percentage an asset gets with respect to discussion among the top 100 cryptocurrencies per market capitalization. The aforementioned finding means that Filecoin does not seem to be enjoying an exceptional share.

Realistic or not, here’s FIL’s market cap in ETH’s terms

In the interim, Filecoin presented what the FVM would practically achieve at the Ethereum Denver event on 4 March. The project noted that the Mainnet launch would solidify Filecoin’s position as the top L1 with access to the open data ecosystem. Colin Evra, Filecoin’s Interplanetary File System (IPFS) Lead said,

“The launch of the FVM initiates a step of the Filecoin masterplan, bringing smart contracts, and user programmability to the open data economy”