The wait is over — The Filecoin Virtual Machine is here.

Welcome to the Filecoin Foundation newsletter, where we cover big ideas and news about the Filecoin ecosystem and the decentralized web. Today’s edition focuses on the launch of the Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM).

 The Filecoin Virtual Machine in 90 Seconds

The Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM) is now live on the Filecoin Mainnet!

In case you weren’t one of the over 50,000 people who live-streamed the Countdown to FVM event at ETH Denver, here’s a quick recap of FVM and what it means.

FVM brings smart contract programmability to the Filecoin blockchain.

With FVM, developers can write and deploy custom code that leverages Filecoin’s large-scale data storage network. This will unlock the development of applications, organizations, and markets that will rival the scale and breadth of services offered by centralized cloud providers while opening up opportunities for things like:

Data onboarding and management - enabling tools that automate storage dealmaking.

Storage provider discovery and reputation - creating differentiation opportunities for SPs while enhancing the reliability of decentralized storage for users.

DataDAOs - facilitating the collective creation, curation, and monetization of valuable datasets.

Cross-chain interoperability - allowing easy integration with other economies.

FVM will shape the future of the internet by enabling developers, not centralized corporations, to become the builders of the data-centric economy in the exponential age.

Here is what Filecoin Foundation (FF) has been up to ahead of the FVM launch:

The Space Warp Hackathon was the largest Filecoin hackathon to date, attracting over 1,000 hackers and 276 project submissions. The FF grants team awarded microgrants to early builders for their work with FVM, and FF developer advocates supported with tutorials, workshops, project mentoring, and judging. Check out FF Dev Advocate Ally Haire’s complete guide on how to build, run, and deploy your own DApp to mint AI-generated NFTs on the FVM Hyperspace Testnet!

The Filecoin Orbit team facilitated community-hosted FVM Open Hack Days. This initiative created broader collaboration and adoption of the FVM, and awarded three winners for their outstanding projects.

• In first place, The Online Voting Machine, from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Led by Amon Kamala, the project aims to revolutionize voting as an FVM-based online solution.

• In second, WFIL (wrappedFIL), from Shenzhen, China. Led by Yuzhou Lin, WFIL is an FVM smart contract and acts as an ERC-20 token on the Filecoin network.

• In third, Vertex Finance from Lagos, Nigeria. Led by Abimbola Adebayo, Vertex Finance aims to simplify and streamline the process of participating in liquidity provision and staking in decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols.

More than 700 community members joined us IRL (and 50,000+ virtually) at ETH Denver to celebrate the Countdown to FVM, a day of programming featuring the team behind FVM and builder success stories.

Now it's time to build!

…but first, keep reading to see what else is happening in the Filecoin ecosystem.

From the FIL-ing Cabinet

Discover news from across the Filecoin ecosystem.

Learn how Filecoin Plus incentivizes storage on the network. Fil+ adds another layer of trust to the network to make sure valuable data is preserved on Filecoin’s distributed network. More than 300 clients have onboarded large datasets through the Filecoin Plus program.

Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web is supporting the world's first geospatial working group alongside the University of Maryland. The working group was hosted by the EASIER Data Initiative, facilitating open discussion about opportunities and challenges of the nexus of web3 and geospatial data.

The Event File

See what’s coming up and follow our full programming lineup here.

 FIL Hong Kong – April 12 to 15

Join Filecoin Foundation and Protocol Labs at FIL Hong Kong, hosted alongside the Hong Kong Web3 Festival. Mark your calendars — April 12 to April 15. The programming will feature networking, lightning talks, workshops, and special programming opportunities for Filecoin Storage Providers. More details to come!

Filecoin Network Base @ Consensus – April 24 to 26

See you at Consensus! The Filecoin Network Base is your home base in Austin ahead of Consensus 2023. Catch a lightning talk, participate in workshops with developers, and hear the latest on the Filecoin Virtual Machine daily from 10 AM to 8 PM, April 24 through 26.

Come BUIDL With Us

A highlight of Filecoin Foundation’s Dev Grant recipients building new tools and services on the Filecoin network. Learn more about the program.

Reneum

Reneum is a Regenerative Finance (ReFi) platform to fund climate solutions via natural capital-backed tokens. Focusing initially on the energy transition, Reneum partners with green energy developers to vet, monitor, and issue tokens they can sell on Reneum's marketplace, for a vertically-integrated and digitally-native, fully traceable approach to Energy Attribute Certificates (EACs).

Waterlily

Waterlily, an FVM AI-Art Attribution Project, run by the Bacalhau team with the help of Algovera, created several ML models based on artists' work. Waterlily aims to provide new revenue streams for artists and an ethical new paradigm for AI art. It goes live following the launch of FVM!

Wave 2 of FVM Microgrants is now open. Take your FVM project to the next level with a next-step microgrant! Apply for your chance to win one of twenty $5K grants. 

Apply for a Developer Grant

The Filecoin Dev Grants program helps advance projects and aims to award additional grants to boost development in the Filecoin ecosystem. Check out our other grant recipients and learn how you can apply for Open Grants and Microgrants.

Community Governance

Updates on Filecoin Improvement Proposals (FIPs).

Do you want to better understand and help design Filecoin governance? Join us on March 27 at 15:00 EST for the first open Filecoin community governance call, organized by the governance team at Filecoin Foundation. Dive into protocol updates, governance best practices, and Filecoin Improvement Proposals (FIPs) –– no technical experience necessary. We hope to see you there!