Arweave- First permanent data storage protocol targeting $3T market through Proof of Access

According to IDC, by 2025 there will be 163 zettabytes of data in the world. Following up on the above forecast, IBM report found out 80% of data today is unstructured and cannot be stored permanently.

Although, The current blockchain protocols tend to solve the unstructured aspect of data; However, the limitations of current on-chain data storage including 1) scalability (due to high-fees), 2) requirement of third-party integrations and 3) temporary storage paves way towards a need for a protocol that can solve existing gaps in the distributed ledger space.

Arweave is the first data storage blockchain platform that stores data on permanent basis and provides low-cost storage solutions. Recall, existing protocols faces high fees due to on-chain storage which requires third-party protocol to be synchronized in order to bring down costs; this however results in privacy and trust issues thus compromising on the basic essence of decentralization.

Limitations of Existing Technologies

Most blockchain technologies work on the mantra where a “full node” maintains a duplicate copy of “entire chain” to verify past and future transactions. While the increasing usage of blockchain makes the existing system a whole flawed; Arweave tends to solve this issue with its “block-weave” technology whereby nodes carry only relevant data and directs irrelevant data onto sub-nodes or branches thus reducing the burden of data from main chain and hence translating into low-cost permanent storage.

Features of Arweave- Reviving data storage from scratch

• No more forging or modification!!

Arweave tends to solve limitations in traditional (centralized) data structures (like Mckinsey) as well as in existing blockchain too. The traditional system suffers from ownership of content which can be altered or changed as per onwer’s discretion or can be censored while the existing blockchain protocols lacks low-cost and permanent storage facility on distributed ledger. But, arweave tends to solve the issue by providing low-cost, permanent data storage facility in a manner where the whole network has ownership of content. For example, the white paper explains it in this manner;

Once the document is stored on the weave, it is cryptographically linked with every other block on the weave. This ensures that any attempt to change the contents of the document will be detected and rejected by the network

• Blockweave- On going verification saving miners time and cost

In normal blockchain protocols, a “full node” consensus is required for verification which increases cost and makes the whole process time consuming for existing as well as old miners. Arweave uses 1) Block hash list and 2) Wallet list both will be verified on-regular basis thus making the whole network updated from genesis block verification to the current one. For any new miner, this technology will be like heaved, where they dont need to update and verify the whole chain.

• Proof of Access

Arweave is one of the very first projects incorporating Proof of Access concept along with Proof of Work. In typical, Proof of Work scenario, a miner do not need to store all blocks (forming a blockchain), but rather can store any previous blocks, incentivised by PoA and wildfire, forming a weave of blocks, a blockweave. This means less hurdle, less duplicate data and easy mining as PoA algorithm chooses data on random basis.

• Wildfire

Since Arweave shares data free-of-cost, it has added an additional layer of incentive for miners to continue mining. This works on ranking mechanism whereby peers are financially incentivised to stay well positioned in each other’s rankings, this makes wildfire system a low cost and high-speed network distribution mechanism.

• Block-shadowing

Normally, when a new block is mined, the entire block is distributed to whole chain thus causing lots of duplication and burdening chain with too many data sets. As a result, average transactions slows down and so does the time required to reach consensus about a block by network. Arweave uses block-shadowing which works by sharing only a minimal block “shadow” between nodes thus making whole network lighter and speedy.

DApps- Taking arweave one step closer towards Mass adoption

Sharing free data is not only the aim rather providing a light and sustainable eco-system for future DApps is the motive of project. A developer in order to take advantage of inherent arweave blockchain needs only to link Arweave wallet through a Chrome extension or needs to integrate any native application on Arweave wallet. On heart of the Arweave technology, a number of new DApps can be formed thus paving way towards future of decentralization.

Team

The team appears professional having vast experience in blockchain technology. Linkedin profiles together with past scholar work further improves our satisfaction on the professionalism of Arweave team.

What the Github says?

The github has total 726 commits with 5 branches by 7 contributors. The 7 is a healthy number as compared to average projects where 2–3 developers are committing. Checking on the dates of each commit shows the coding of the project started 8 months back which makes us believe the original code must have been written even before that. The final coding and testnet files shows that the team is ready to deliver on its promise of MainNet.

MainNet- Delivering on Promise ahead of competition

The token sale of Arweave ended on 6th June and the team is ready to bring the MainNet even before the coins have been distributed, this just increases our conviction on the strong commitment and dedication of team.

Token Economics

The team raised $8.7mn in total with a token supply of 66mn; since under 100mn tokens are always considered as top notch in crypto heaven, the very low market cap further adds cherry on the top for investment case of Arweave.

Final Verdict

As a project and as an investment, Arweave fulfills all check marks to be considered as one of most promising ICOs of 2018. We maintain “Buy” stance on the coin.