Filecoin’s storage power has grown 40% since mid-October's miner standoff amid FIL lending surge

The total storage power on Filecoin has grown over 40% since a Chinese miners’ standoff in mid-October, which resulted in an upgrade to the network’s block rewards and a surge in FIL lending.

Data shows the decentralized storage blockchain, which went live on October 15, has now nearly 850 pebibyte (PiB) of effective storage, compared to 600 PiB seen around October 19 when a majority of Chinese Filecoin miners had either significantly slowed down or completely halted their growth plan

The Block reported at the time that the shortage of Filecoin’s native cryptocurrency FIL in the market caused miners to stop growing their effective mining power - since they needed FIL to pledge as collateral.

As such, Filecoin's total network storage power had nearly zero growth rate in the days following the mainnet launch and was steadily around 600 PiB.

To resolve the issue, Protocol Labs, the foundation behind Filecoin, decided to activate a proposal on October 22 that would release 25% of Filecoin miners' block rewards immediately without vesting.

In addition, several crypto exchanges have also launched financial products for users to deposit FIL to earn lucrative interest as well as for miners to borrow FIL with collateral in order to fulfill their growth appetite.

Binance rolled out a FIL time deposit product with an annualized interest of 156% and a 7-day maturity term on October 26. Currently, it is still offering a nearly 1% daily interest for FIL savings.

Gate.io also said last week that the lending demand for FIL has been surging with an annualized interest over 100% as miners are looking for more resources to boost their mining growth.

Since the miners' standoff around October 19, Filecoin's total network storage has increased by 250 PiB over the past 22 days with a daily average growth of about 11 PiB. 

To seal and grow every 32 gibibyte of storage, a miner needs to pledge 0.2 FIL as collateral. Hence, a daily growth of 11 PiB equates to miners having pledged around 70,000 FIL every 24 hours.