Web 3.0 would enable new possibilities and opportunities

The decentralized data storage solution InterPlanetary File System, or IPFS, is a peer-to-peer hypermedia protocol that is designed to make the web "Faster, safer and more open." It allows users to download webpages and content that is stored across multiple nodes instead of from a central server.

The current internet protocol relies on location-based addressing, which identifies data by its location rather than its content.

Even if the same data is available at a nearer location, it will still trek all the way to a specific location/address to access that data, which is a limitation in terms of efficiency.

Now, with big data and on-demand HD video streaming, people have started consuming and producing more and more data.

Using Kademlia distributed hash tables, or DHT, the IPFS P2P file-sharing system spreads data across a network of computers that are coordinated to enable efficient access and lookup between nodes.

DHT provides a decentralized data structure where IPFS peers can locate other peers and the content requested.

Blocks of data are exchanged over the IPFS network through its data trading module called Bitswap.

Modeling the block exchange as a data exchange marketplace, each peer participant has an internal strategy used to decide if content will be exchanged with any other participant.

The block exchange protocol relies on proof-of-replication, which is used to prove that data is safely stored somewhere and is accessible; and proof-of-space-time is used to prove that data was stored throughout a period of time.

These protocols all work together to allow IPFS to form an extensive P2P system for distributing, storing and retrieving blocks of data quickly and robustly.