The scope of Filecoin Research is confined to projects and open-problems related to the development and improvements that have an impact on the overall Filecoin protocol, either directly (open problems needed to be solved in order for Filecoin to operate at scale) or indirectly (breakthrough results that would serve our work). It does not include PL Researchers’ work moving research results into the Filecoin spec, responding to feedback/needs from developers, or producing technical write-ups, research papers or other materials to be presented to the research community at large.
The problems listed in this document are present and future work to be tackled by the Protocol Labs research team, research collaborators, grantees and other interested researchers. This is not an exhaustive list.
Problems can be of very different scales, not least based on our progress in tackling them. Some represent a few days’ of research or a few months; as they are tackled, they may turn into projects and spark other open problems, or be resolved and lead to a spec change.
The research problems are categorized as:
Short-term:
- Priority: problem is high priority for Filecoin development, will be tackled in the next one to two quarters
- Complexity: The problem space for these is generally small
Medium-term:
- Priority: problem is relevant for the deployment of Filecoin, should be tackled in the next two to three quarters
- Complexity: These are complex problems that will typically require multiple iterations of research.
Long-term:
- Priority: problem is lower priority for the deployment of Filecoin, but important for the improvement of the protocol
- Complexity: typically open problems that require substantial amount of research
Related to the above priorities, the problems we are interested in in the space have more or less direct impact/applicability to Filecoin development. Therefore, some are more or less likely to be tackled by the Protocol Labs team in the near future. Some guidance on our current outlook on how we view these problems:
Working On:
Filecoin Research intends to tackle this problem as part of our main roadmap.
Collaborators:
This is research we would love to collaborate with external researchers in the field with. We’d be happy to work toward a joint publication on the topic, or support a team doing this work, helping motivate its usefulness for a real-world system like Filecoin.
RFP:
This is work we would possibly look to put a bounty on, funding external groups to pursue this line of enquiry through Request for Proposals or other forms of grant-making.
Curious:
We are curious about this area of research and interested in following this line of enquiry, as new constructions or discoveries in the space may have applicability in Filecoin.