Bitcoin vs Filecoin

Bitcoin is the first decentralized blockchain, secured by proof‑of‑work where miners expend SHA‑256 hash power to find valid blocks every ~10 minutes. The supply is capped at 21 million coins, with inflation halving roughly every four years—the most recent halving occurred on 20 April 2024. Upgrades like SegWit and Taproot have enabled second‑layer protocols such as the Lightning Network and emerging covenants via OP_CTV debates.

Filecoin is a decentralized storage network where miners commit disk capacity and prove it through Proof‑of‑Replication and Proof‑of‑Spacetime. Clients pay FIL to store or retrieve data, and retrieval miners serve content over an IPFS‑compatible network. The 2024 ‘Hydra’ upgrade introduced delegated staking and boosted retrieval markets, while the Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM) now lets developers deploy EVM‑style smart contracts that can automate deals or tokenize data.