Store important open datasets on the Filecoin network, ensuring that they are preserved for many generations to come.
The Slingshot program started off as a collaborative-competitive community program to accelerate the storage of real, valuable open data on the Filecoin network, rewarding participants along the way. Slingshot v3 is the next significant iteration of the program, with the intent of storing open datasets from a variety of different sources and taking the learnings from Slingshot Restore and Evergreen to emphasize the permanence of the data onboarded.
Slingshot v3 will engage individuals in a new role - “Data Preparers” (referred to as DPs), who are responsible for the downloading, processing (turning raw data into CAR files - see https://spec.filecoin.io/#section-systems.filecoin_files.piece.data-representation for more), and distribution of CAR files to Storage Providers. This is a significant difference from Slingshot v2, where a “Client” had to act as both as the “Data Owner” (the beneficiary of having the data stored in the network) and the “Data Preparer," whereas in Slingshot v3, the “Data Owner” can simply signal high quality and valuable public datasets to the program and benefit from the fact that they are stored in the network, and a separate “Data Preparer” (i.e. anyone in the ecosystem) can be rewarded for facilitating replication of the data to Filecoin.
Deals will be issued by the Slingshot Deal Engine to all qualified Storage Providers (SPs) with access to these CAR files. All deals will be verified deals (Fil+). The program plans to meet all Fil+ requirements and set the standard for future deal distribution engines / brokers.
SPs have to sign-up and go through a lightweight KYC process (familiar for those who are participating in the Slingshot Evergreen program) to be enabled to receive deals from the engine. SPs are expected to maintain a high standard of retrieval success rate to continue being issued new deals from the engine.
For those of you that are familiar with Slingshot v2 and may have participated in the program over the last 18 months, here are the key differences in this update:
You can participate in Slingshot v3 as a DP, SP, or both.
If you are new and would like hands-on guidance, or if you want to meet other SPs participating in the program, check out Moon Landing and join the community!
DPs are responsible for:
DPs will be rewarded for their efforts based on the data onboarded and replicated during the course of a season. DPs will be eligible to receive a maximum of 1000 FIL/PiB per dataset. Replicas need to be geographically distributed (see FAQ) and will be stored with eligible SPs.
If you would like to participate as a DP:
Any SP can participate in the program, including:
SPs participating in the program should be:
If you are interested in participating as an SP in Slingshot v3, please check out the "Participating as an SP" section on the Requirements page.
What are the distribution requirements for replicas? CIDs will be stored up to 10 times, pursuant to the following distribution requirements:
CIDs will be eligible for deal proposals for SPs with the following limitations:
For efficient replica building, using just retrievals on Filecoin to distribute data to SPs may not be ideal, so DPs should consider alternative methods of hosting CAR files.
Who’s making the deals? Deal proposals will be issued to eligible SPs that request for them via the Slingshot Deal Engine. This engine is just the Evergreen Deal Engine upgraded with support for multiple deal-issuing tenants (including Slingshot Evergreen, v3, and others). You can see more about the Engine here: https://github.com/filecoin-project/evergreen-dealer.
What happens at the end of each season? Right now, the main function of a season is to serve as a forced check-in point for progress in the program. This includes collecting feedback from participants and making changes to the program design, finalizing and issuing rewards, resetting dataset assignments to participating DPs, and sharing progress with the community. As we move towards building the long term mechanism for permanent open data storage, seasons will likely evolve as a construct.
Dataset assignments can be extended into the following season through coordination with the Slingshot ops team. This will happen in cases where a DP has verifiably finished downloading the dataset, i.e., sharing screenshots and checking uploads of CAR file metadata to Web3.storage, or has already finished preparing it, i.edeals showing up on chain with appropriate CIDs.
For how long should a DP make CAR files available for download? Based on the current design for rewards, DPs are incentivized to get maximum replicas (up to 7) stood up in a 90d window of active dealmaking. Effectively, DPs are likely to use a combination of hosting CAR files and coordinating with SPs to download them directly or retrieve them to parallelize the distribution of their pieces within that 3mo period to get replicas stood up. If a DP decides to host CAR files at http/https endpoints, they should be hosted for either (1) as long as it takes for the target number of replicas to be built or (2) <=90 days. The program design is likely to continue evolving, so this may change in future seasons.
More questions? If you have any questions, please ask them in the #slingshot Filecoin Slack channel. If you run into any issues with the process or the deal engine, please file an issue using the following link.