On March 31, Filecoin officially announced that a new round of notary selection had ended, and POWPOWER was elected as a notary of the Filecoin Plus project with a score of 3.7. The notary selection is measured from multiple dimensions such as the contribution of the Filecoin network and corporate influence. Nearly 100 companies or organizations including the media, investment institutions, communities, and application layers participated.

https://github.com/filecoin-project/notary-governance/issues/447

Filecoin Plus

Filecoin Plus aims to enable the demand side of the Filecoin network and maximize the amount of useful storage on Filecoin by adding a layer of social trust to the network and introducing a novel resource called DataCap. Clients looking to onboard storage onto the network apply to community-selected Notaries to receive DataCap, which can be used to incentivize storage providers to take storage deals.

#Concepts

Filecoin Plus is based on a set of guiding principles, detailed in FIP-0003 (opens new window), that focus the program on increasing Filecoin’s effectiveness at becoming the decentralized storage network for humanity’s most important information.

Root key-holders, notaries, clients, and storage providers, interact through the allocation and spending of DataCap. Notaries retrieve DataCap in batches and then allocate it to trustworthy clients that spend the DataCap to fund storage deals. Storage Providers that receive DataCap receive a 10x boost to their quality-adjusted power for the storage space offered in that deal, which increases their block reward share in the network. This creates a mechanism that incentivizes all participants to make Filecoin more useful.

#DataCap

DataCap, when allocated to a client, can be spent by the client in storage deals with storage providers. Those deals carry a higher deal quality multiplier, which increases the “quality adjusted power” of the storage provider on the network by a factor of 10, yielding better block rewards for the storage provider over time. DataCap is granted in batches to Notaries, who can allocate it to clients that spend the DataCap to fund storage deals. DataCap is consumed as it is used to make deals.

#Notary

Notaries are selected to serve as fiduciaries for the Filecoin Network and are responsible for allocating DataCap to clients with valuable storage use cases. The base responsibilities of notaries include:

Allocate DataCap responsibly to clients to subsidize reliable and valuable storage on the network.

Ensure that in the allocation of the DataCap, no party is given excessive trust in any form that might jeopardize the network.

Follow operational guidelines, keep a record of decision flow, and respond to any requests for audits of their allocation decisions.

You can find a list of current active notaries at plus.fil.org (opens new window).

Notaries are selected through an application process (opens new window). If approved, root key-holders (opens new window)(executors of the decisions made by the community on-chain) grant notary status and DataCap amounts. Those interested in becoming Notaries should apply for this role by filing an Issue in the notary governance repo (opens new window).

#Client

Clients can use their DataCap to incentivize storage providers to serve their needs. This can include providing additional features and levels of services that meet their specific requirements. In doing so, storage-related goods and services on Filecoin are made more valuable and competitive over time. Notaries vet clients to ensure the client receives DataCap commensurate with their reputation and needs and that the client responsibly allocates that DataCap.