$3.88

Arweave is a decentralized storage network designed to enable permanent data storage. It describes itself as a collectively owned hard drive that never forgets, hosting a permanent, decentralized web with various community-driven applications. The network uses its native cryptocurrency, AR, to pay miners for storing data indefinitely. The project was initially announced as Archain in August 2017, rebranded to Arweave in February 2018, and officially launched in June 2018.

Arweave was founded by Sam Williams and William Jones, both Ph.D. candidates at the University of Kent. Williams had experience in decentralized systems, having developed an operating system called HydrOS, while Jones focused on graph theory and neural networking. Williams dropped out of graduate school to focus on the company, while Jones left the project in mid-2018 to complete his Ph.D. Williams later became an advisor to Minespider and a mentor for Techstars. In January 2020, Arweave launched a decentralized autonomous organization to support network development.

Arweave aims to ensure the collective ability to store and share information across generations. Its permaweb is built on a blockweave, a variation of blockchain where each block is linked to the previous one and a random earlier block, incentivizing miners to store more data. In June 2020, Arweave introduced profit sharing tokens, allowing developers to earn dividends from transaction fees generated by their applications. It also runs incubators and a Boost program to support startups. In March 2020, Arweave received $8.3 million in funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures, and Coinbase Ventures.

Arweave has a maximum token supply of 66 million AR. When the genesis block was created in June 2018, 55 million AR was minted, with an additional 11 million to be introduced gradually as block rewards. The project held a pre-sale in August 2017 selling 10.8% of the initial supply, followed by public sales in May and June 2018 selling 7.1% and 1.1% respectively. Allocations included 19.5% for a private sale, 2.9% for advisors, 13% for the team, 19.1% for ecosystem development, and 26.5% for future use, with lock-up periods.

Arweave uses a modified blockchain technology called blockweave, which employs a proof-of-access consensus algorithm, a variant of proof-of-work. Each new block is linked to the previous one and a random earlier block, and both are hashed to create the new block. Miners are incentivized to store more data to prove access to old blocks needed for mining. The mining protocol, RandomX, was audited by four cybersecurity firms in August 2019. Arweave plans to adopt a new algorithm, SPoRA, starting in early 2021, which was audited by NCC Group in December 2020.

AR can be purchased on cryptocurrency exchanges such as MXC.COM, Bilaxy, Huobi Global, and Hoo. It can be traded against Tether (USDT), Bitcoin (BTC), and Ether (ETH).