What is Arweave?

Arweave is a blockchain startup that has pioneered a novel blockchain-like structure dubbed the blockweave, a platform that cost-efficiently enables scalable on-chain data storage. As the quantity of data kept in the system rises, the amount of hashing required for consensus reduces, decreasing data storage cost.

AR is the native token of the Arweave ecosystem. It is a multi-utility token with a maximum supply of 66 million. It is used to pay data upload fees within the network and to reward miners.

A brief history of Arweave

Founded in 2017 as Archain, the firm eventually changed its name to Arweave in 2018 after finishing the Techstars Berlin mentoring programme. Arweave’s objective is to offer permanent, low-cost internet storage. Arweave aims to achieve this through the Arweave network and its block-based data structure, better known as the blockweave.

The Arweave mainnet debuted in June 2018 with a small group of 1,800 hand-picked members across different nations. Before the launch, the Arweave team also had a first token sale restricted to whitelisted persons only.

In November 2019, Arweave received a US$5 million fundraising round from numerous venture capital companies. In March 2020, the Arweave team raised an additional US$8.3 million from Andreessen Horowitz, USV, and Coinbase Ventures, in exchange for AR tokens. Following this round, Arweave said it would utilise the fresh cash to drive community adoption and development.

The Arweave network has a maximum circulation of 66 million AR tokens, of which 55 million were distributed during the genesis block during the network’s launch in June 2018. Arweave plans to introduce another 11 million AR gradually through block mining rewards.

Arweave’s permanent storage solution has been integrated on Polygon in November 2021 and on Avalanche in April 2022.

How Arweave works

Arweave’s blockweave underlies the Arweave permaweb, an array of data, websites, and apps on the blockweave. Arweave protocol allows anyone with excess hard drive space to store data in exchange for AR tokens. Arweave assumes that the cost of storage will continue to decline and employs a formula to forecast how much it will cost to store a given piece of data.

Arweave’s protocol includes a novel data structure, called a blockweave, with a new consensus method called proof of access (PoA). As the name indicates, the blockweave protocol has a block-based structure where each block connects to two other blocks — the one just before it and another block at random.

The recall block is a randomly picked block within the protocol’s history. It is calculated by taking the current block’s hash and computing its modulus about the current block height. Miners must give hashes from both of the earlier blocks to construct a new block and get the block reward using Arweave’s native token AR.

Because the permaweb is based on Arweave, users may anticipate reliable, immutable access to its content. Once published, permaweb apps and websites will be visible for the duration of the Arweave protocol’s functioning. Since a wallet’s information in the blockweave is signed, data uploaded to the permaweb is associated with an identity, even if it is a pseudonym. Arweave may also be used to store NFTs permanently. Arweave wants to significantly modify data storage industry norms and build a new Internet, where information is always available.

What is Arweave (AR) used for?

The main function of the Arweave (AR) token is for incentivising miners to maintain copies of data in the network. While miners earn from transaction fees, they don’t receive it directly all at once, as Arweave uses a system that gradually gives out AR tokens over time. The majority of the transaction fee is allocated to a storage ‘endowment’, which is distributed to miners after it accrues interest.