Arweave : Web3’s take on file storage
Cloud and wireless technology kind of give the impression that data is and will always be accessible. It couldn’t be more wrong.
Every bit of data is stored in some server room somewhere. Most server rooms have redundancy protocols and double or triple electricity grids that secure your data in case of different incidents.
But most of the data is still backed up on servers owned by very centralised companies or people. While it might not be a bad thing per se, it can be a risk factor for the integrity of your data.
One solution to this problem is to store data in a decentralised and immutable manner. Blockchain technology also gave birth to projects who do just that.
Arweave
In their yellow paper called “Arweave : A Protocol for Economically Sustainable Information Permanence” we learn how they created a storage system based on economical incentives to ensure data integrity.
Permanency
What makes the storage permanent is that the data is embedded in the blockchain, the hash of the blocks not only contain the transactions but also the data itself. As long as the blockchain is alive, the data keeps all its integrity.
Also, since the storage is decentralised, it does not matter if some computers go offline or even if electricity is out in an entire country. As long as there are nodes that run the blockchain, the data is safe.
Proof of Access
The way the blockweave — which is Arweave’s blockchain — works is interestingly different from other blockchains.
Every block has a reference to the previous block, as in all blockchains, but it contains a second reference to a random block in the chain — called a “recall block”. To successfully mine a new block, a miner has to have access to that random recall block also.
Meaning, the miner needs to have stored the data contained on the random block to be eligible to mine the new block.
This incentivises miners to store more data to have more chances of drawing a block with a reference to something they have in storage. Particularly, this motivates miners to store data that isn’t very broadly stored.
This way, if you’re storing something that is rarely stored, if a reference to it is made in a new block you don’t have that much competition and you might get the opportunity to mine the new block and cash in the rewards.
Storing NFTs
A widely criticised aspect of NFTs is that in some cases — when the digital underlying asset is not embedded into the blockchain — you only pay for a link to some image or any other digital asset.
Which means that if the server that hosts the link is corrupt, destroyed, offline or simply doesn’t work anymore because someone forgot to pay the bill, your NFT becomes empty. Which is problematic for obvious reasons.
This problem ends with decentralised and permanent storage.
Of course, this works for everything else and not just NFTs, but we’re more in an NFT hype than a hospital archive hype or a city’s real estate archive hype.
Competition
The only real competition to Arweave is IPFS — Inter Planetary File System —that might deserve an article on its own. The main difference is that the IPFS, like Filecoin and many others, isn’t permanent.
They store your data as long as you pay your rent, which seems reasonable. But Arweave chose a slightly more radical approach, you pay more but you only pay once. Ever.
If you want to modify the data you stored, a copy will be made and you’ll have to pay again. Once you stored something on Arweave it’s immutable, since it’s embedded in the Hashes of the blockchain.
Can you Arweave anything ?
Another issue with immutability and blockchain is that malicious actors might want to troll you or use the immutability feature as a way of storing illegal or immoral content.
To circumvent that, the team at Arweave came up with a system that allows nodes to decide wether or not they want to store something. And by vote of the majority, some content might be completely banned.
For decentralisation maximalists, this might be a negative aspect of the project but I believe that some kind of control is a good thing. Playing dumb and not acknowledging the evil side of humanity will only lead to abuse.
Big clients
Arweave and its technology managed to attract Solana as a client. All the data created by Solana’s blockchain is stored forever on the permaweb — Areweave’s web, which by the way runs on http which means that it’s accessible through Google and other search engines.
Since you have to pay in AR — Arweave’s token — to store data, having Solana as a client will provide a steady demand for AR tokens. If they manage to attract other clients of this size the future of AR looks bright and mooney.
They’re backed by some of the most known and respected VCs of the industry and the solution they brought to the market hasn’t been overlooked.
Final thought
Being able to store your data safely and permanently is very important for a lot of businesses, and not only in the web3 industry. Think about architects, cities, banks, universities, police departments… you name it !
Having your data stored by one entity or individual is not that safe, and I don’t see how data storage won’t keep getting more and more decentralised.
We’ll definitely keep an eye on Arweave’s evolution.
As always, this isn’t financial advice, DYOR as if your finances depend on it.
