<aside> ❗

This guide serves as a starting point for Storage Providers to understand F3. The sections will be filled with more detailed content based on questions that arises over time

</aside>

🌟 Introduction

This guide provides essential information for Storage Providers about F3 (Fast Finality) in the Filecoin network. We'll cover what F3 is, why it's important, and what it means for Storage Providers.

F3 (Fast Finality) in Filecoin is a significant upgrade coming to Filecoin in network version 24.

In this guide, we will:

1. Define 💭 What is F3 (Fast Finality)? and its purpose
2. Explain 👥 Who Needs to Run F3?
3. Discuss the ⚙️ Implications for Storage Providers
4. Address potential concerns and frequently asked questions

💭 What is F3 (Fast Finality)?

F3 is a new component in the Filecoin network that dramatically reduces finalization times. Some key highlights that F3 brings to the network is:

🏁 F3 reduces finality time from 7.5 hours (900 epochs) to just a couple of minutes.

• This means that Filecoin transactions can be settled with certainty in just a couple of minutes, enabling a very smooth user experience for builders and exchanges.

🤝 It works alongside the existing Expected Consensus (EC) mechanism.

• In the event that F3 is not able to finalize epochs, the consensus mechanism will fall back to Expected Consensus (EC) until F3 can finalize an epoch again.

🎬 It provides deterministic finality, improving upon EC's probabilistic finality.

• This means that once a block is finalized, it cannot be reverted or altered.

👥 Who Needs to Run F3?

Storage Providers: All block-producing eligible storage providers (i.e., those with at least 10TiB raw power) automatically participate in F3 without any extra setup.

Other network participants do not actively participate in the F3 consensus process, but they leverage F3 in various ways:

• ☁️ Light clients: These are nodes that do not store the entire blockchain but still need to verify transactions. With F3, light clients can benefit from faster transaction finality, making their operations more efficient and reliable. It also paves the way super light clients that can be run in a browsers, and be able to send transactions to Filecoin network and just listen to when it will be finalized without having to trust an intermediary.
• 🤖 Smart contracts: Smart contracts on the Filecoin network will also benefit from the reduced finality time. This means that contract executions can be confirmed much quicker, enabling more responsive and interactive decentralized applications (dApps).
• 💰 Exchanges and wallets: Faster finality times mean that exchanges and wallets can provide quicker transaction confirmations to their users, improving the overall user experience.
• 🧑‍💻 Developers and dApp builders: The reduced finality time allows for the creation of more dynamic and responsive applications, as transactions and state changes can be confirmed in a matter of minutes.

⚙️ Implications for Storage Providers