Who Is Juan Benet, the Filecoin Creator Whose FIL Sits 93% Below Its 2024 High?

Juan Benet is the Stanford-trained computer scientist who created IPFS and Filecoin, and FIL's Tuesday 15 September 2026 close on Phemex landed 92.88% below its best 2024 close. He founded Protocol Labs in May 2014, and FIL is the token that pays Filecoin's storage providers.

That 92.88% depends on which high you measure from. Our FIL series starts on 21 December 2023 and peaks at an 11.466 close on 8 March 2024. CoinPaprika's record reaches back to a 236.97 print on 1 April 2021 and puts the same 0.816 close 99.66% below. The 12.73% drop on 15 September was the largest one-session loss of the 116 perps with a 15 September bar.

Juan Benet at a Glance

Who Is Juan Benet?

Juan Benet is the computer scientist who invented the InterPlanetary File System and Filecoin, and he founded Protocol Labs to build both. The PL R&D team page lists him as founder and CEO of that research arm.

He took both of his degrees in computer science at Stanford University, a bachelor's in 2010 and a master's in 2012. His publication record runs from the 2014 IPFS paper to two proof-of-replication reports dated 2017 and 2018, the cryptography that lets Filecoin check storage.

The Long Now Foundation recorded his talk "Long Term Info-structure" at the SFJAZZ Center on 6 August 2018. Y Combinator's directory lists Protocol Labs in its Summer 2014 batch, with Benet as the active founder.

How Did Juan Benet Build Protocol Labs and Filecoin?

Protocol Labs keeps its own timeline of work, and every step below comes from that page or from a paper Benet signed. The same page disagrees with itself on scale, counting over 600 network organizations near the top and more than 750 at the bottom.

Step one: IPFS and Filecoin started as ideas and prototypes in August 2013. Benet posted the IPFS paper to arXiv on 14 July 2014, and he's its sole listed author.

Step two: He founded Protocol Labs in May 2014, and the company went through Y Combinator's S14 program. Protocol Labs raised money from technology investors that September, and the go-ipfs alpha shipped in February 2015.

Step three: The Filecoin token sale raised $205.8M in the third quarter of 2017. Protocol Labs built the first version of CoinList with AngelList to run that sale, and CoinList spun out as its own company that October. Our guide to what an initial coin offering is walks through the token-sale format of that era.

Step four: Filecoin mainnet launched in October 2020 and passed 1 EiB of storage capacity within its first month. Our explainer on how Filecoin's storage market works covers the miners who supply that space. The timeline marks July 2024 as the month Protocol Labs finished turning itself into a decentralized innovation network.

The Numbers Behind Filecoin's 93% Gap From Its 2024 High

Every figure in this table comes from the daily closes of the FIL/USDT perpetual on Phemex. The 1,000-bar series runs from 21 December 2023 to the Tuesday 15 September 2026 close.

The gap changes with the source you pick. Our series tops out at the 11.466 close, but its highest intraday print was 11.867 on 9 March 2024, and that high puts the 15 September close 93.12% below. CoinPaprika's record reaches 236.97 on 1 April 2021, less than six months after mainnet, and on that yardstick FIL is 99.66% under its peak.

The H1 uses 92.88%. It's the one figure you can check close by close on the contract you'd trade. A 2021 spot print from an aggregator has no bar on this chart to test it against. The intraday reading adds a quarter of a point and changes nothing about the picture. A holder who bought in 2021 lives with the bigger number.

The 15 September drop came straight after a spike. FIL closed 18.98% higher on 13 September at 0.953, its highest close since 1 June 2026. It slipped to 0.935 on 14 September and gave back 12.73% on 15 September to finish 1.87% above its 12 September close. Turnover on the 15 September bar reached $2.05 million against a prior-30-bar average of $1.36 million.

No cause for either session appears on the Protocol Labs pages we opened, and this profile won't invent one.

The 18 August close of 0.632 is the lowest in the series, and FIL has gained 29.11% from it. Our Filecoin price prediction for 2026-2030 puts its stall level at $0.63, a few ticks from that floor. The 50-day average at 0.738 runs below the 200-day at 0.843, so the longer trend still points down.

Why Juan Benet's Story Matters Beyond Crypto

For founders: Benet published the protocol before he had a token to sell. The IPFS paper went out in July 2014, and the $205.8M Filecoin sale came three years later, once the research and the code had a public record behind them.

For investors: Filecoin buyers in 2017 paid for a network that didn't launch until October 2020, three years after the sale closed. Our comparison of how ICOs and IEOs differ lays out the sale formats that followed that era.

For traders: Benet's 2026 output centers on neurotech. The PL R&D team page lists seven Juan Benet Podcast episodes in 2026 with guests from Max Hodak to Tom Oxley. None of them covers FIL, so read the token on its own chart.

What Traders Should Watch on FIL

• The 200-day average at 0.843 as the line where the longer trend turns, 3.31% above the 15 September close.

• The 0.632 close of 18 August 2026 as the lowest close in the series and the base of the rebound into September.

• The 0.953 close of 13 September as the top of the spike and the highest FIL has closed since 1 June 2026.

• The 50-day average at 0.738, which runs 9.53% below the 15 September close.

How to Trade the Trends Juan Benet Represents

Via crypto futures: Phemex lists the FIL/USDT perpetual with leverage up to 50x, and each contract is worth 1 FIL. Funding settles every eight hours, a figure read from the contract's funding interval field. FIL futures let you short a drop like the one on 15 September as easily as you buy a bounce.

Via crypto spot: The FIL/USDT spot pair on Phemex gives you the token itself with no funding payments, and it takes a minimum order value of 1 USDT.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Juan Benet the CEO of Protocol Labs?

PL R&D's team page lists him as founder and CEO. The older Protocol Labs Research site carries the same title under a banner that sends readers to the PL R&D domain.

What is the Juan Benet Podcast?

Protocol Labs publishes it on YouTube and Substack, and it centers on neurotech and computing. The first episode with Max Hodak covers PRIMA, the retinal prosthetic his company Science Corp is building.

Did Juan Benet write the Filecoin proofs?

He co-authored the 27 July 2017 Proof of Replication report with David Dalrymple and Nicola Greco. Protocol Labs' timeline ties that work to its 2017 redesign of the Filecoin protocol.

What else came out of Protocol Labs?

The timeline says libp2p and IPLD were split out from IPFS in June 2016. In August 2020 Protocol Labs helped launch drand, a public randomness beacon, with Cloudflare and the Ethereum Foundation.

What can traders learn from Juan Benet?

Network growth and token price run on separate clocks. Protocol Labs counted over 3,300 storage providers and 12 EB of capacity in October 2021, six months after FIL's record print.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and is not financial advice. Cryptocurrency trading involves substantial risk. Always do your own research before making investment decisions.