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Ethereum File System

Organizing data on the world computer

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Web3 Weekends�May 8th, 2026

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JamesCarnley.eth

Crypto class of 2017 · solo builder of EFS

> EFS :: Web3 Weekends Chicago :: 2/13

[ABOUT]

11 years as Software Engineer at

Interests:�

  • Distributed systems
  • Network protocols
  • System design
  • Agentic engineering

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What happened to the web?

Apps die. Links rot. Communities lose their home.

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[PROBLEM]

Rented Web

GeoCities

shut down

MySpace

50M songs lost

Google Reader

discontinued

Vine

platform died

Twitter API

clients killed

Permaweb on EFS

Ethereum will outlast us

​

Data is durable

​

Unruggable foundation

It is not one bad corporation. It is rented infrastructure.

Apollo

API pricing

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How does web3 work?

Use blockchains as trustless web infrastructure

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[SOLUTION]

EFS enables that trustless web

Trustless properties

Open Source Public Good

Verifiable

Permissionless

Credibly Neutral

Unstoppable

Decentralized

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Secret Sauce? Crowdsourcing

Crowds solve scale. Credible neutrality solves the pressure-point problem.

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[HOW]

Wikipedia

Crowd-maintained knowledge

Thousands of volunteers keep a planetary-scale encyclopedia alive.

Sci-Hub

Access when institutions fail

Researchers built the largest scientific corpus because access mattered.

Internet Archive

~500K books removed

Corporations used the courts to delete half a million books

EFS provides the crowd a reliable home

Institutions can be captured. The missing piece is a credibly neutral place for the crowd to work.

Partial backup of the web

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What actually is EFS?

A shared onchain index for public data

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[WHAT]

Shared namespace

Paths the whole world can extend

Onchain graph

Anchors, Properties, Data, Pins, Tags

Lenses

View data from those you trust

Web client

Easily create and use onchain data

Ethereum L2s are servers, Blockspace / IPFS is the hard drive, EFS is the index.

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One Topic, Many Lenses

A shared coordinate does not mean one canonical answer.

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[HOW]

/pizza/deepdish

JamesCarnley.eth

Pequod's

Vitalik.eth

Giordano's

PizzaDAO.eth

Pizzeria Uno

Everyone can publish. Your Lens chooses whose world you see.

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Properties and Files

Properties are simple onchain strings. Data points to files on the web.

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[HOW]

Properties: reliable config

Example: /devices/hvac/temperature = "68F"

​

A thermostat can read its setting from the chain even if a company cloud disappears.

Data + Mirrors: Files

DATA = hash + metadata

​

MIRRORS = ipfs://, ar://, https://, web3://

​

The hash verifies the bytes; Mirrors are retrieval routes.

Onchain strings for logic�Content-addressed files

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Web Client

Protocol uncensorable. Browser curated.

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[REAL]

EFS protocol

Onchain metadata

Composable configuration

Permissionless information

No global delete button

EFS Web Client

Browse Topics and Users

Choose Lenses

Organize data via tags

Try the protocol�Trustlessly hosted on IPFS

https://app.efs.eth (.limo or .link in Chrome)

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Live Demo

Proof of Work

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[REAL]

Pray to the demo gods 🤞

Topics → content → Lenses → filters

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What’s Next?

Schema freeze and deployment to Sepolia

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[FUTURE]

Fun features

User profiles and sharing

Express yourself with a Web3 MySpace

�Topic Discussion Threads

Discuss things like Usenet of old

�Markdown Wiki

Open knowledge base�

Interesting datasets

Whitepaper, meme, game mod, recipe databases

​

Creating fun stuff while building the cypherpunk foundation

Cypherpunk OS

Kernel

wallet · RPC · secrets

Shell

navigation · settings · permissions

Sandboxed Apps

SES / LavaMoat · no network by default

Open App Store

discover apps through Web of Trust

secure

shielded data

open

forkable clients

privacy-first

permissioned access

Long Term Vision

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Want To Collaborate?

If this sounds fun, come build a piece of it with me!

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[ASK]

design · docs · demos · curation · community · weird ideas

No funnel. No job posting. Just come say hi.

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Let’s Chat

Questions, objections, weird ideas, devnet feedback, all welcome

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[ASK]

efs.eth · @efs_project · github.com/efs-project