With the explosion of the DePIN, decentralized storage has again attracted widespread market attention. Decentralized storage is a crucial infrastructure in the Web3 space, but for ordinary users, it may be challenging to grasp its charm intuitively. However, cloud storage products have always been among the best choices for the general public to experience storage services.
The earliest cloud storage project in traditional Internet, Xdrive, was born in 2002. The most popular cloud storage today, Google Drive, has been available for almost 12 years, with over 3 billion users. Cloud storage products have achieved “step into the homes of tens of millions of common people,” but at the same time, real-world incidents of data loss or misuse have occurred due to centralized cloud storage. Data has gradually become a crucial asset for people, and decentralized storage is emerging as the new guardian of personal property. Among many decentralized storage solutions, people often first notice the higher market value of FIL, but the author wants to explore the more unique Arweave and its ecosystem of cloud storage projects.
Arweave has been running smoothly since its mainnet launch in 2018, focusing on permanent storage. It features a unique Blockweave data structure, a concise and elegant SPoRA consensus mechanism, and a mature economic incentive mechanism. Additionally, Arweave has introduced the native smart contract standard — SmartWeave, allowing developers to build applications on top of it. Moreover, Arweave is an open protocol that supports integration with any application to achieve permanent storage functionality.
As of the beginning of 2024, according to incomplete statistics, there are over 130 projects built around Arweave, subdivided into 12 tracks. Arweave has become a large and active ecosystem. This article will focus on introducing the cloud storage projects in the Arweave ecosystem — WeWeave, ArDrive, Akord, and Moss — and conduct a multi-dimensional comparative analysis of the four.
WeWeave
WeWeave is a lightweight and user-friendly cloud storage. The website has a simple design, allowing seamless file storage upon entering. It is particularly suitable for users who prioritize storage usability. WeWeave is built on Arseeding (Arweave light node gateway) and uses the ANS104 (transaction scaling protocol on Arweave) for storage applications, especially suitable for scenarios with a small number of files.
Currently, WeWeave only supports the MetaMask wallet. Users can choose assets from three public chains to pay for storage fees, including the Ethereum chain (USDT, AR, ETH), BSC chain (BNB), and Moonbeam (GLMR).
Users can enjoy a smooth storage experience on WeWeave. When storing files, users can add tags to them. Additionally, WeWeave supports indexing, allowing users to search by entering keywords or tags. The search scope includes all files stored on the chain through WeWeave. In other words, what is currently uploaded to WeWeave is publicly visible, and users can access their stored files online or download others’ uploaded files.
ArDrive
ArDrive, established in 2020, is a relatively mature cloud storage project. From the web interface and user experience, it closely resembles traditional Internet cloud storage, akin to a Web3 version of Dropbox or Baidu Cloud.
Users only need to make a one-time payment to effortlessly store their data permanently. It supports data encryption visible only to the user and allows the creation of folders to manage categorized data. Developers can use the ArDrive CLI tool to upload data, monitor network operations, and check transaction status.
Currently, ArDrive only supports Arconnect wallet (Arweave native wallet) login, requiring the wallet to hold AR tokens for storage fee payment. New users are provided with a free upload limit of 500KB. Considering users may be unfamiliar with the Arconnect wallet, ArDrive has optimized to support the one-stop creation of a new Arconnect wallet within the application, significantly reducing user entry costs.
In addition, through a collaboration with payment provider Stripe, ArDrive introduced ArDrive Turbo, allowing users to pay storage fees with fiat currency (credit cards or debit cards). Also, in 2023, ArDrive issued its native token ARDRIVE, which users can trade on the decentralized exchange Permaswap.
Akord
Akord is a collaborative cloud storage offering end-to-end encrypted storage functionality. It also supports collaborative work and private message sending. Accurately speaking, Akord’s project positioning is a decentralized digital vault, but its product features align closely with cloud storage. Especially after a brand reshaping, Akord transitioned from a one-time payment model to a subscription model, focusing on secure storage and content publishing, an extension based on the cloud storage business.
Akord is very user-friendly for Web3 beginners, requiring simple account registration. It automatically generates a mnemonic phrase for each successfully registered account to recover account information. Additionally, Akord allows users to directly import files from Dropbox and Google Drive for storage.
Moreover, Akord not only supports permanent storage services but has recently introduced temporary storage functionality. This enables users to store files on traditional cloud storage platforms and delete this temporary storage data at any time, providing more flexible choices. Furthermore, Akord has introduced token-gated access, allowing users to set access rules for stored files, expanding its application scenarios.
Moss
Moss is a social cloud storage introduced by the 4EVERLAND (Web3 cloud computing platform) team, combining both centralized and decentralized storage methods. According to Moss’s current product design, it adopts a model similar to Friend. tech, encouraging creators to build communities for value exchange. Storage might be a side dish; Moss’s social features are the main course.
In terms of basic cloud storage functions, Moss offers a variety of options. For storage services, users can choose traditional cloud storage, IPFS decentralized temporary storage, and Arweave permanent storage. In terms of data sharing, users can open access to data or set access passwords.
The core components of Moss include Personal Folders, Mystery of Moss Origins NFT, Moss Stone, Key, and Mossyland.
- Mystery of Moss Origins NFT: Holders have the right to create Moss Stone.
- Moss Stone: A shared space for creators on the Moss platform, storing valuable data and featuring an embedded chat room.
- Key: Each Moss Stone has its corresponding Key, and users need to purchase the Key to join Moss Stone.
- Mossyland: A grand square that gathers all Moss Stones, making it easy for users to explore and join.
For regular users, Moss can store data and allow them to join interesting Moss Stones. For creators, the Key’s economic model encourages them to continuously provide high-value content to the community, creating a positive economic cycle.
Cloud Storage Product Comparison
The functions and features of the four cloud storage projects are listed in the following table.
Considering the project characteristics, below is an analysis of WeWeave, ArDrive, Akord, and Moss from multiple aspects:
- Data Security: All four projects support Arweave for permanent, tamper-proof data storage, ensuring data security.
- Compatible Storage Methods: Akord supports traditional cloud storage services; Moss supports both traditional cloud storage and decentralized IPFS temporary storage services.
- Multi-Chain Support: WeWeave is the only cloud storage supporting multiple chains, allowing payment of storage fees with assets from various public chains while storing data on Arweave.
- Storage Costs: Currently, Arweave’s storage cost is approximately $9 per GB, requiring a one-time payment for permanent storage (theoretically for 200 years), with a monthly fee of only $0.00375 per GB. Additionally, ArDrive provides 500KB of free upload capacity, and Akord provides 100 MB of free upload capacity.
- User Threshold: Akord has the lowest user threshold, requiring simple registration for login. WeWeave and Moss support a broader audience with MetaMask wallets, while ArDrive requires an Arconnect wallet login, incurring user education costs.
- Basic Functions: All four projects include batch upload, online preview, file sharing, and download functions.
- Data Search: Only ArDrive currently lacks search/filter functionality. WeWeave integrates Adot (a large-model-based Web3 search engine) for full-chain data indexing, enabling users to directly retrieve mainstream content from the Arweave network.
- Collaborative Sharing: Moss has a chat room feature for community interaction; Akord performs well in collaborative sharing, with an embedded chat room and support for setting access management permissions and querying logs of usage records, making it ideal for multi-person collaboration.
Conclusion
Web3 is more than just hype; it has produced a batch of real, usable products. Although Arweave dominates the field of permanent storage, it is often underestimated in the market due to its weak financial attributes. As a storage infrastructure committed to problem-solving, Arweave prioritizes long-term stable development over short-term wealth effects.
Currently, within the Arweave ecosystem, there are a series of cloud storage projects such as WeWeave, ArDrive, Akord, and Moss, each with different features, directly serving users and addressing their real needs. Decentralized cloud storage, as a familiar yet unfamiliar product, has the potential to become an entry point for people to explore decentralization as more use cases are continuously explored.
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