IPFS Maintainer Shipyard to Cease Operations After Funding Decline

Shipyard, the maintainer of InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), will cease its engineering and infrastructure operations by September 30, following Protocol Labs' decision not to renew funding. This move affects projects like Kubo, Helia, Boxo, Rainbow, IPFS Desktop, and IPFS Companion, which will lose dedicated maintainers unless taken over.

IPFS, a peer-to-peer data storage protocol, and Filecoin, a blockchain for decentralized storage, were created by Protocol Labs. Shipyard, established in 2024 by longtime IPFS developers, will stop managing public infrastructure including ipfs.io and IPFS bootstrap nodes. Protocol Labs owns these assets and will decide their future.

While IPFS itself isn't shutting down, the loss of Shipyard's stewardship impacts popular implementations. Protocol Labs' Molly Mackinlay stated that IPFS will shift towards lighter stewardship via grants to individual maintainers, with continued development on public infrastructure.