Questions regarding Filecoin listing

[Bokum18]

Hi, If an exchange is already listing ETH, how much development effort would it take for the exchange to list FIL? Also, is FIL's FVM fully compatible with EVM? Can it be listed with the same effort as ERC20 without having to make changes to the bytecode etc?

[eshon]

Hi @Bokum18,

• It may depend on whether the exchange intends to run nodes themselves or if they get support from third-party infrastructure and data providers. Please see https://docs.filecoin.io/reference/exchanges/exchange-integration for more info and reach out to Filponto.io if you need support / advice.
• Filecoin's EVM / FVM is fully compatible with EVM. An exchange could add support for FVM only and expect pretty much the same integration interface as any other EVM in terms of JSON RPC API, address formats, etc.
• The same is true for any ERC20 on Filecoin's EVM.

[Bokum18]

Hi ＠eshon
Thank you reply!
We are planning to run our own node as part of the integration. Based on your explanation, is it correct to understand that the development effort required to list Filecoin would be roughly equivalent to that of integrating other EVM-compatible chains, such as Avalanche (AVAX)?

[eshon]

@Bokum18 - Yes same as any other EVM if you only want to support FEVM 0x addresses. For a smaller exchange this should be fine.

Some exchanges started supporting Filecoin long before the FEVM was launched in March 2023 so many also support native f1 addresses. But if any of your users need to send FIL to/from your exchange from an f1 address they can use the non-custodial Glif.io wallet as an intermediate step because it also has the FilForwarder contract integrated into its UX (see FilForwarder - Filecoin Docs).

Note that in Filecoin native, every 0x EVM address also has an f410 native address equivalent. You don't need to support this in your UI, just supporting 0x is fine, but I'm just making you aware for potential customer support / understanding.

Please also make sure you use this method number for EVM Send's to avoid users getting FIL locked in a smart contract:

Method: 3844450837

(See for more info: https://docs.filecoin.io/smart-contracts/filecoin-evm-runtime/difference-with-ethereum#bare-value-sends)

Gas costs may also be different from other chains.

Again, reach out if you have any questions or need further technical support. We have a team that updates exchanges about important network upgrades (required node updates) so it'd be great to set up a channel on Filecoin Slack (invite link then DM @eshon) to update you about these or Telegram is also possible.

[eshon]

^^ tl;dr - Filecoin supports EVM out of the box, but there are some integration points with native Filecoin that need to be considered for potential users.