The Filecoin Foundation and Lockheed Martin Space have successfully transmitted data in space using a version of the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) on a satellite orbiting Earth, Marta Belcher, president of the Filecoin Foundation, told Cointelegraph. 

Filecoin and Lockheed Martin adapted the system for use in space and successfully tested it, Belcher said during the Consensus 2025 conference in Toronto.

The IPFS enhances privacy and security compared to traditional web protocols, such as HTTP, by identifying data based on its content rather than its location. This has additional benefits for data transmission in space, Belcher said.

“The architecture is well-suited to space because it reduces delays, compensates for data corruption caused by radiation, and enables cryptographic verification to ensure data has not been tampered with,” she said.

The foundation is a nonprofit governing the decentralized cloud storage protocol Filecoin (FIL), which uses the IPFS web protocol to store data. Lockheed Martin is one of the world’s largest aerospace companies.

Source: Filecoin Foundation

Decentralized storage benefits

“There’s a multi-second delay from the Moon and a multi-minute delay from Mars,” Belcher said.

“With IPFS, you look for a content ID and retrieve the data from wherever is closest — your own device, a nearby satellite, or a lunar station.”

Additionally, the IPFS uses a distributed architecture to store multiple copies of data across a global network, reducing reliance on centralized data centers.

These multiple copies of data improve reliability in environments where hardware is prone to degradation, helping to ensure the integrity of sensitive materials such as satellite images, according to Belcher.

Interest in decentralized archival storage is growing among media companies, and the Foundation is also exploring potential military applications of this technology, Belcher said.

“It could be really powerful for media in general to have that deep archive and also the ability to have your records everywhere all over the world when needed,” she said.

The FIL token is a utility token that can be used within the Filecoin ecosystem. It has a total market capitalization of approximately $1.8 billion as of May 16, according to Cointelegraph data.

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Solv Protocol has launched a yield-bearing Bitcoin token on the Avalanche blockchain, giving institutional investors more exposure to yield opportunities backed by real-world assets, or RWAs.

On May 16, the protocol unveiled SolvBTC.AVAX, a token that connects Bitcoin (BTC) to real-world assets like US Treasurys and private credit offered by BlackRock and Hamilton Lane. 

The new token was developed through a seven-way partnership involving Solv, Avalanche, Balancer, Elixir, Euler, Re7 Labs, and LFJ, the company said. 

Solv Protocol founder Ryan Chow said the token is a way to link Bitcoin to “real-world economic cycles” in uncorrelated assets such as US government bonds and private credit, as opposed to BTC’s typical boom-and-bust four-year cycle.

The token uses a multi-protocol strategy to generate yield involving Elixir’s deUSD stablecoin, Treasurys provided by BlackRock and Hamilton Lane via Elixir, and incorporated on the lending platform Euler to increase RWA exposure.

“The yield is received in BTC format,” a Solv Protocol spokesperson told Cointelegraph

Elixir deUSD is a synthetic dollar with nearly $220 million in market capitalization. Source: RWA.xyz

Solv is a Bitcoin-centric staking platform that offers yield strategies across various blockchains and decentralized finance applications. The protocol commands more than $2.3 billion in total value locked, according to industry data. 

Solv Protocol’s TVL. Source: DefiLlama

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The race to offer Bitcoin yield intensifies

Demand for Bitcoin yield solutions has grown amid the recent wave of institutional adoption of digital assets.

Earlier this month, crypto exchange Coinbase launched the Bitcoin Yield Fund, which aims to offer annual returns of between 4% and 8% on BTC holdings. 

The yield will be earned through a cash-and-carry strategy, which involves purchasing BTC in the spot market and selling a corresponding futures contract, Coinbase said.

CoinShares analyst Satish Patel predicted the growing interest in Bitcoin yield in December, noting that more investors now see BTC “not only as a store of value but also as a means to generate yields.”

While there are many ways to generate Bitcoin yield, such as leveraging derivatives or yield farming, Michael Saylor’s Strategy introduced its own “BTC Yield” metric to measure the performance of its investment strategy.

Strategy’s BTC Yield, which measures how much additional Bitcoin it’s acquiring relative to its outstanding shares, is currently 15.5% year-to-date, according to the company. 

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At least one partner at Sequoia Capital was reportedly impacted by the recent data breach among Coinbase users, suggesting that data from others at the venture capital firm may also have been compromised.

According to a May 16 Bloomberg report, Sequoia Capital Managing Partner Roelof Botha’s personal information available through his Coinbase account was stolen after a group of cybercriminals bribed the exchange’s support agents for access to user data. Though Botha had not publicly disclosed his net worth, estimates suggested he had hundreds of millions of dollars in assets.

Coinbase disclosed the data breach in a May 15 blog post, saying that some of its users had been targeted with social engineering attacks after the criminals had access to their personal account information. The company said the group attempted to extort $20 million in exchange for not disclosing the breach, which Coinbase rebuffed.

Though the extent of the breach was still unknown, another Bloomberg report suggested that the same type of attacks targeted users at Kraken and Binance. Cointelegraph reached out to representatives from both exchanges but had not received any response at the time of publication.

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Coinbase’s chief security officer, Philip Martin, reportedly said the contracted customer service agents at the center of the controversy were based in India and had been fired following the breach. The exchange also filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, estimating that they planned to pay between $180 million and $400 million in remediation and reimbursement to affected users.

Coinbase CEO in DC to advocate for crypto bills

Amid the reports related to the data breach, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong was in Washington, DC, to support crypto-related legislation being considered in Congress. Lawmakers in the Senate are expected to vote on a stablecoin bill in a matter of days, and those in the House of Representatives are considering a draft digital asset market structure bill.

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This is a developing story, and further information will be added as it becomes available.