IPFS and Filecoin — new protocols to decentralize the web and cloud storage — start to develop as ideas and prototypes.

Protocol Labs (PL) founded by Juan Benet to improve the internet and computing. PL is part of the YCombinator S14 program.

Initial IPFS and Filecoin papers released. IPFS Community forms. go-ipfs and js-ipfs in development. Early IPFS and PL contributors join.

PL raises funding from prominent technology investors.

go-ipfs alpha is released, and development and growth in the open begins.

IPFS gains usage in the Ethereum community, and among other blockchain networks.

Protocol Labs raises funding from BlueYard (blog), USV (blog), and other prominent investors.

go-ipfs 0.4.0 is released, with a large set of improvements.

libp2p, Multiformats, and IPLD are split out from IPFS, ahead of the first Decentralized Web Summit with internet pioneers.

PL redesigns the Filecoin protocol, culminating in the invention of Proofs-of-Replication and other cryptography results.

PL creates initial version of CoinList with AngelList to run Filecoin and other token sales.

PL Filecoin v2 paper is released.

PL raises funding through the Filecoin Token Sale, raising $205.8M total.

CoinList launches as an independent company, spun out from Protocol Labs and AngelList.

The SAFT Project launches as a collaboration between Protocol Labs, Cooley, and other token creators, legal experts, and investors.

Protocol Labs Research and RFP Grant Program debut.

PL hosts LabDay 2018, a day-long event dedicated to contributors and collaborators in the Protocol Labs ecosystem.

First ProtoSchool workshop held in Denver, CO.

PL introduces the Permissive License Stack, an open-source approach to intellectual property.

Filecoin code is opened to the community and first devnets launched.

Filecoin Testnet launches, and grows to 5 PB of proved storage in the following months.

IPFS 0.5.0 is released.

Testground, a platform for testing, benchmarking, and simulating distributed and p2p systems at scale, launches.

The League of Entropy, a partnership between Protocol Labs, Cloudflare, the Ethereum Foundation, and others, launches drand, the Internet’s first production-grade, publicly verifiable randomness beacon.

Filecoin mainnet launches, surpassing 1 EiB of storage capacity within its first month.

nft.storage launches, providing off-chain storage of NFT metadata and assets in a free, simple service. More than 40M NFTs stored on IPFS & Filecoin within the first year!

Protocol Labs begins transition to a decentralized network, forming independent teams that collaborate openly.

Filecoin and IPFS builders funnel continues to grow, with over 10,000+ developers engaged YTD through hackathons and grants.

The Filecoin network continues to grow, with over 3,300 storage providers and over 12EB of capacity, making Filecoin the largest aggregation of data storage in the history of the world.

The inaugural Funding The Commons was held, creating a forum for people making shared goods faster and more robustly via user-friendly mechanisms and robust experiments.

PLN Launchpad, a full-time onboarding program for new network members, kicks off its first cohort. It ends 2022 with the successful completion of eight cohorts.

Inaugural FIL VC hosted in Singapore, with 26 teams and 300+ investors participating

LabWeek22, our first-ever decentralized conference, brought together over 150 PLN teams, with 1,000+ attendees and 100+ speakers at 38 events in Lisbon.

Protocol Labs and Filecoin Foundation announce an alliance (Decentralized Storage Alliance) with AMD, Seagate and EY, to help more companies make the transition from Web2 to Web3.

Saturn, a Web3 CDN in Filecoin’s retrieval market, launches version 1.

Bacalhau Python SDK ships, offering client-side logic, enabling builders to fully interact with Bacalhau with a user-friendly, Pythonic interface.

Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM) is live on mainnet! The Filecoin blockchain now supports smart contracts and user programmability via the FVM, unlocking the enormous potential of an open data economy.

Builders Funnel and PL Ventures continue to scale, with [X] teams receiving investment and support from the PL Network.

PL VS (PL Venture Studio) introduced. Additional Protocol Labs teams launched as independent companies, including Expanso, Lurk, Funding the Commons, and Solaris.