IPFS

P2P Protocols

Peer-to-peer distributed file system and protocol that uses content-addressing to uniquely identify files in a global namespace

Fully P2P Foundation Low capture risk
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Details

License Apache 2.0 / MIT
Dev Status Released
Owner Protocol Labs (founded by Juan Benet)
Country USA
Start Year 2013
Stack Go, Rust, JavaScript, Python
Funding VC, ICO
Last Investigated Jan 15, 2026

Use Case Domains

Platform Evolution & Sovereignty Co-Creation & Knowledge

Affordances

Local-first storage Interoperable formats Self-hostable Data portability

P2P Protocol Attributes

P2P Architecture Kademlia DHT (for peer discovery)
Overlay Network Global DHT
Content Addressing Content addressing (CIDs via cryptographic hashing)
Local-First N/A (nodes store cached content)
E2EE N/A (content is public by default, E2EE at application layer)
CRDTs Lib N/A (IPFS itself doesn't use CRDTs, but can store CRDT data)
Byzantine Fault Tolerance N/A (no consensus mechanism, content integrity via hashing)
Signature Cryptographic hashing (content verification, not signing)
Permissions N/A (public by default, no built-in access control)
Semantic Web Compatability IPLD (InterPlanetary Linked Data)
Smart Contract N/A (Filecoin has smart contracts, not IPFS)
Protocol Stack Position Application-layer (built on TCP/IP)
Asset / Value Embedding None — IPFS is a content-addressed storage and retrieval protocol with no native token or economic incentive layer at the protocol level. Pinning services and storage nodes operate independently without protocol-mandated payment.
Protocol Maturity / Standardization IETF Draft (CIDs specified in draft-multiformats-cid; content routing via HTTP delegated routing specs; libp2p components under active IETF submission)