What Is The Arweave Protocol & How Is It Transforming The Web?

• Arweave network is designed to permanently store data over the web in a decentralized manner.
• The protocol works on the unique Proof of Access (PoA) and recall block concepts.

The present is called the golden age of information, where data is readily available over the internet at your fingertips. People often drown in the ocean of information, migrate from one website to another, and experience the real potential of the internet. 

In their swimming, they often consider the data to be permanent and tamper-proof, however, the truth is far from their expectations. Most of the data is stored on centralized servers that are controlled by a single entity. Although they haven’t, they have all the right to limit our internet access and even prevent us from using it. 

Moreover, the server requires constant security checks and upgrades to prevent any cyber attack, which, if unfolded, can cause loss of data and a crash of the internet. Their maintenance, too, requires a constant supply of funds. There are already several examples where governments and media houses have tried to alter their previous statements to avoid any conspiracies. Political parties are already infamous for being involved in censoring data to their advantage. 

The Arweave Network

The structure of the Arweave protocol cannot be exactly called a chain, as seen in other blockchain networks, but a block weave. Each block is linked to two other blocks, one the previous block and the other a random block from history called the recall block. To mine or verify any data, a node should have access to this recall block. 

The consensus mechanism used is called the proof-of-access (PoA), which is almost similar to the proof-of-work (PoW) with just the recall block data also included in the block. Several nodes prefer to store rare blocks rather than easily replicated ones, increasing their chance of mining a block. This is because when mining rare blocks, there is less competition, which increases their probability of having higher incentives. To increase the lookup, accessibility, and security of data, the network incentivizes nodes to store a copy of it on their computers as well. 

In most blockchain networks, as also seen in Bitcoin, the nodes have to store the entire data of the blocks from Genesis up to now. This consumes a lot of data and also becomes a challenge for new miners to join the network. In the Arweave protocol, nodes do not need to store all the previous blocks, rather, to verify transactions and mine new blocks, the data required is all memoized into a single block. 

Any new miner needs to just download the current block from any peer they trust and start mining. They can also start by verifying some of the previous PoW transactions, and the deeper they go, the less trust they need to start mining. There are two types of players acting in the network, mainly users and miners. The native currency of the network is AR, which has two purposes, encoding data into the system and rewarding the miners. Users pay for these AR tokens to store their data in the network and miners in turn receive them for doing so. 

Conclusion

The transactions, as seen from a user’s point of view, fall basically into two categories, the data exchange ones, which store data in blocks, and the value exchange ones, where the AR tokens are transferred. The total number of AR tokens minted during Genesis was 55 million, and over time, 11 million (20%) were added, making the total circulating supply 66 million. The protocol already has several partners, including the Internet Archive, Solana, Avalanche, Polkadot, and Cosmos, among others, who are using its services.