Filecoin's mainnet launch delayed again as window is pushed to late July at the earliest

Decentralized storage network Filecoin will see a further delay for its mainnet launch window, this time moving to between late July and late August.

In a new update, the Filecoin team disclosed that project has undergone the first round of its internal protocol security audit. Based on the results, the developers decided that they must implement a number of changes before carrying out the second phase of its testnet. 

Developed by Protocol Labs, Filecoin is built on the peer-to-peer data storage network InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), and is intended to let users trade storage space in an open market. The project conducted one of the largest token sales in 2017 and raised more than $200 million from accredited and institutional investors.

The mainnet was originally supposed to launch in March 2020. In February, the team postponed that launch to a window between July 15 and July 17, citing the coronavirus outbreak in China as the main reason for its unfinished work. Now, the developers say they still more time to address the changes raised during the audit.

"[We've] drafted a number of protocol changes to ensure that our mainnet launch construction is secure and economically sound,” said the announcement. It said the project's core developers would be adding them to the protocol's two implementations, lotus and go-filecoin, "within the next few weeks."

To give the community a chance to weigh in on the timeline, Filecoin's development team carried out a poll to let community members vote on three different options regarding the launch dates for Testnet Phase 2 and the mainnet.

After accounting for community feedback, the team has settled on a "conservative" estimate that the phase-two testnet will launch the week of May 11, and the mainnet will launch between July 20 and August 21. The updates can be seen on Filecoin's project roadmap chart.

"This option would have us land the most critical protocol changes first, and then implement the rest as protocol upgrades during testnet," the announcement explained.