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.