Filecoin Foundation Announces One Million Cultural Artifacts Preserved on the Filecoin Network

Filecoin Foundation (FF) today announced a new wave of cultural and scientific datasets that are now being preserved on the Filecoin network. These datasets are contributed by organizations including the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), Earth Species Project (ESP), Oceanic Whispers with RadicalXChange, Prelinger Archives, and Rohingya Project, bringing the total number of culturally significant digital artifacts stored on Filecoin to more than one million.

Previously, in January, FF announced more than 500,000 culturally significant digital artifacts preserved, including recent datasets from Flickr Foundation, MIT Open Learning, Smithsonian Institute, and others.

Data powers progress across fields from AI to education and research, yet most data remains vulnerable because of the single points of failure created by centralized infrastructure. The recent Google Cloud outage, which disrupted Google, Spotify, Discord, and Cloudflare for hours, is just one example of how a single point of failure can cut off millions from essential services.

As a decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN), Filecoin is setting a new standard for safeguarding humanity’s most important information. The network eliminates single points of failure through global distribution and replication; ensures authenticity and provenance with an auditable chain of custody; and reduces reliance on any single institution or platform for long-term access.

The latest additions to the Filecoin network capture a broad spectrum of human experience and knowledge, showcasing how decentralized infrastructure strengthens both preservation and access to information. New datasets include:

Digital Public Library of America and its partners hold more than 50 million items that reflect the U.S.’s cultural heritage, including photographs, videos, books, news footage, oral histories, letters, artwork, government documents, and more. DPLA is embarking on a pilot project to preserve selected partner content on Filecoin and share learnings about decentralized storage with its community.
Earth Species Project has uploaded its BEANS-Zero benchmark dataset to the Filecoin network to ensure global, resilient access. The dataset plays a crucial role in training ESP’s new foundation model, NatureLM-audio, the first audio-language foundation model specifically designed for animal sounds and tailored to fully leverage the potential of bioacoustics data. ESP demonstrates the critical role decentralized storage can play in supporting open science.
Oceanic Whispers by CROSSLUCID and developed in part with RadicalXChange isan experimental data trust that combines environmental science, AI-generated narration, and haptic art. Data from Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) is stored on Filecoin and transformed into interactive experiences. A partial common ownership model helps ensure value flows back to contributing scientists, communities, and ecosystems.
Prelinger Archives is a collection of tens of thousands of archival films relating to U.S. cultural history, the evolution of the American landscape, everyday life, social history, and much more. Many of Rick Prelinger's own films, like Panorama Ephemera (2004) and his 35mm-film Lost Landscapes series, are also preserved on the Filecoin network.
Rohingya Project is a community-led initiative preserving the collective identity and cultural memory of stateless Rohingya communities. An archive of the culture and history of the Rohingya people is now preserved on Filecoin.

These organizations are working with Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web (FFDW), Filecoin Foundation’s sister non-profit, which advances the decentralized web through education, research, and development.

Our mission is to preserve humanity’s most important information,” said Marta Belcher, President and Chair of Filecoin Foundation and FFDW. “Collaborating with leading institutions allows us to use decentralized storage to ensure that these important datasets remain accessible into the future.

The addition of these datasets demonstrates how decentralized technologies like Filecoin are transforming digital preservation and access, ensuring that cultural and scientific resources endure with authenticity, integrity, and resilience.