Quick Guide about Arweave (AR) and Its Decentralized Storage Network

Arweave is a decentralized storage network that aims to provide a platform for the long-term archival of data.

BC Bitcoin
5 min readJan 20, 2023

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What Is Arweave (AR)?

Arweave network primarily hosts the “Permaweb,” a permanent, decentralized web with a number of community-driven applications and platforms.

It describes itself as:

“A collaboratively owned hard drive that never forgets.”

The Arweave network pays “miners” to keep the network’s data permanently stored using its own cryptocurrency, called AR.Arweave wants to “guarantee the common ability to preserve and share information across individuals and through time to new generations,” according to its yellow paper.

Permaweb and Blockweave

Its flagship “Permaweb” is constructed on top of Arweave’s “Blockweave,” a variant of blockchain technology in which each block is linked to both the one immediately before it and also a random older one, in order to achieve this purpose. According to Arweave, this encourages miners to keep more data because they must be able to access arbitrary prior blocks in order to contribute new ones and get rewards.

Arweave Utility

Arweave is committed to creating a network ecology that is sustainable. In addition to hosting incubators to encourage the development of Permaweb-based apps, it introduced “profit sharing tokens” in June 2020 that enable developers to collect dividends when network transaction fees are generated from their applications. Through its “Boost” initiative, the project also works with startups, giving them access to the Arweave team and business investors as well as free storage.

Funding

In March 2020, Arweave announced that it had received $8.3 million in funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures, and Coinbase Ventures. This followed an earlier November 2019 investment also from Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures, as well as Multicoin Capital.

Blockweave Consensus Algorithm

The “Blockweave” consensus algorithm, which is a modified version of the “proof-of-work” consensus method, is the foundation upon which the Arweave network is formed. With PoA, each new block is linked to both a random previous block and the block that came before it, and both blocks are hashed to produce the new block. While miners are not required to keep a whole blockchain, they are encouraged to do so in order to demonstrate their ability to access the older blocks needed to generate a new one.

Security

Four cybersecurity companies, Trail of Bits, Kudelski Security, X41 D-Sec, and QuarksLab, successfully certified RandomX, the mining protocol used by Arweave, in August 2019. Beginning in early 2021, the project intends to use a new mining algorithm called SPoRA, which it claimed in December 2020 had undergone an examination by NCC Group.

$AR Token Distribution

The maximum token supply for Arweave is 66 million AR, according to its yellow paper. When the genesis block of the Blockweave was generated in June 2018, 55 million AR was created, and an additional 11 million would be added progressively as block awards.

In August 2017, Arweave hosted a token pre-sale event in which 10.8% of the initially produced token supply was sold. In May 2018 and June 2018, Arweave completed two public sales in which 7.1% and 1.1% of the supply, respectively, were sold. Additional funds were allotted by the corporation for a private sale, project advisors, the team (subject to a five-year lock-up with 20% released annually), ecosystem development, and future project use (subject to a five-year lock-up with 20% released annually).

Team

Sam Williams and William Jones, two University of Kent Ph.D. candidates, established Arweave. While Jones’ concentration was on graph theory and neural networking, Williams brought experience with decentralized and distributed systems to the project. As part of his studies, Williams created an operating system dubbed HydrOS.

Arweave was established with centralized leadership, but in January 2020 it established a decentralized autonomous organization made up of key community members to advance the growth and development of the network and its ecosystem.

Roadmap

Where to store Arweave (AR)

  • Arweave Wallet — The Arweave web wallet lets you deploy permanent data from the browser, connect your accounts securely to Dapps (decentralized applications), and navigate the weave.
  • ArConnect is another option that can be used to navigate and access Dapps on Arweave.
  • Finnie is the official companion wallet of the Koii Network, enabling you to create, store, and manage digital assets that will stand the test of time. Finnie uses the Koii Network and decentralized storage on Arweave to provide an immersive user experience without the limitations of typical blockchain applications.

Where to Buy and Sell Arweave (AR)

You can Buy & Sell Arweave (AR) by heading over to the Buy Coins page of our website. Arweave (AR) is available on BC Bitcoin trading against major fiat currencies: GBP and EUR. Buying $AR has never been easier, simply place your order and provide your wallet address. Once your payment arrives, Arweave (AR) will be sent directly to your wallet.

If you choose to Sell Arweave (AR) you can send us the coins and receive a payment to your bank account. Details and valuation can be found on our Sell Coins page.

Arweave (AR) Resources:

Website: https://www.arweave.org/
Block Explorer: https://viewblock.io/arweave
Twitter: https://twitter.com/arweaveteam
Medium: https://arweave.medium.com/

Disclaimer: The information provided in this article is intended for informational purposes only. It is the reader’s responsibility to complete their own research and due diligence.

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