An Article Analyzing the Arweave AO Test Network

*Forward the Original Title： 又来一个“以太坊杀手”？Arweave 从存储业务转向Web3全栈协议，市场沸腾了！

In the storage track, FIL finished pulling and it was AR’s turn.

Yesterday, the blockchain storage protocol Arweave launched its public testnet Arweave AO, catering to social media and AI design computing layers. Subsequently, its native token AR saw consecutive breakthroughs in price, with a 51% increase in 24 hours.

ChainFeeds founder Zhixiong Pan posted on Twitter, stating that “Arweave is the most hopeful cryptographic protocol to make large-scale decentralized data storage a reality. We live a life vastly different from our ancestors solely because we inherit and leverage the knowledge and experience accumulated by humanity over tens of thousands of years. Perhaps this new technology will place an ENIAC in the revived Library of Alexandria.”

So what is the mission of the testnet released by Arweave this time? Arweave founder Williams even said, Arweave AO is confident in competing with Ethereum and calls itself an “Ethereum competitor”, what exactly is Arweave AO?

Large scale + Verifiable, Arweave AO’s Supercomputer Vision

Arweave’s focus is on “Information stored permanently”, offering a decentralized data storage protocol based on blockweave technology. The main network was launched in June 2018, utilizing the data structure of BlockWeave and the consensus mechanism of SPoRA to provide a new solution to the problem of permanent storage. Arweave’s one-time payment and lifetime usage model also address the cumbersome process of continuous subscription for users. Arweave has also pledged to provide users with storage services for at least 200 years.

The launch of the Arweave AO testnet introduces a new method for “infinite” blockchain expansion to handle larger computational workloads. “AO is a hyper parallel computer, a decentralized computing environment that allows you to run an arbitrary number of processes simultaneously in parallel. Previous decentralized computing systems either supported large-scale computing or verifiable computing. AO can do both simultaneously,” said Arweave founder Williams in the announcement video.

This means that Arweave is venturing into the field of computation, similar to Ethereum’s “supercomputer” concept. Arweave AO may even allow AI and large language models (LLMs) to run directly in smart contracts. In an interview, Williams stated that the difference between Arweave AO and other high-performance blockchains like Aptos and Sui is its ability to support storing large amounts of data, such as AI models. “This is largely because the core of the project is based on a data storage platform,” he said.

Mardeni, CEO of the decentralized database WeaveDB, posted that Arweave’s transaction volume reached a historic high today, with TPS far exceeding most blockchains. The performance of Arweave AO in the future remains to be seen.

But before Arweave reached this point, it went through many exploratory processes.

Starting from Storage, Arweave’s Transformation Path

Arweave was founded in 2017 as a blockchain-based file storage protocol characterized by one-time payment and permanent storage of files. Through a simple set of economic incentive rules, Arweave enables miners to store data for an extended period. By 2021, there were over 200 applications based on the Arweave network, spanning various categories such as social networks, infrastructure, content distribution, and verification tools.

In the following two years, driven by the growth of the NFT market and the Web3 creator economy, Arweave’s business data experienced significant growth. By the end of 2022, Arweave’s data storage volume had nearly tripled compared to the same period the previous year, representing a year-on-year growth of 192%. At that time, Arweave’s 30-day network revenue approached $300,000, ranking it at the top of the Web3 Basic Services Protocol list, surpassing star storage and DePin projects like Storj, and Helium.

However, entering 2023, Arweave’s growth in the storage business has significantly slowed down. As of the time of writing, Arweave’s data storage capacity is 157TB, with an increase of only 30% over the past year. The revenue generated from the storage business is also not as high as before.

According to a 2023 Arweave ecosystem report authored by the PermaDAO community, the overall network storage capacity of Arweave in 2023 performed worse than in 2022, totalling 32.96 TiB for the entire year, representing a decrease of 55.78% compared to the previous year. Throughout 2023, the monthly network storage capacity fluctuated between 2-4 TiB, with the lowest recorded in June at only 1.43 TiB.

Meanwhile, the Arweave network was exceptionally active in 2023, and the growth of contracts was also a key indicator. The growth of contracts in 2023 saw a significant increase compared to 2022, with a year-on-year growth of 1063%.

These data indicators reflect the challenges Arweave faces: although many projects are using Arweave storage services, there are still relatively few projects developed entirely based on Arweave. Arweave finds it difficult to form network effects solely through the storage business. However, on the other hand, the rapid growth of new contracts also demonstrates that Arweave still has significant development prospects.

As is well known, low-cost on-chain storage is crucial for the success of blockchain and Web3. Arweave founder Sam Williams revealed an astonishing cost comparison in a conversation with ArDrive founder Philip Mataras: storing a 13 GB file on Arweave costs only $87, while storing the same data on Bitcoin would cost about $35,620,000 and on Ethereum would require $780,000,000.

As a permanent storage project, Arweave itself is an arbitrarily visible, publicly transparent permanent storage network. The storage-based consensus paradigm SCP can already achieve off-chain expansion without losing the final confirmation on the chain. As long as it complies with the expansion theory of SCP, it can be part of Arweave to achieve specific functions.

It can be said that Arweave naturally does not face the problems of expansion. Azriel, the author of PermaDAO, believes that “it is only a matter of time before Arweave comes from behind the scenes to the stage.” The public chain field has long faced the problem of computing and storage costs, and Arweave has demonstrated its potential in promoting the comprehensive decentralization of DApps. Arweave’s positioning is not only a decentralized storage platform but also a Web 3.0 full-stack protocol that supports the comprehensive decentralization of DApps.

After the release of Arweave AO, Arweave founder Sam Williams said in an interview, “We built a hyper parallel computer, a computer that can run any number of threads in parallel at the same time, and its scalability is incredible.”

Not only the founder, but such grand visions have always had believers in the Arweave community. Arweave is seen by the community and developers as a data availability layer, directly meeting the development needs of DApps. In a 2022 space event, Xiong Wei, founder of everFinance in the Arweave ecosystem, jokingly remarked, “The beginning of Arweave is the end of Ethereum.”

It is difficult to conclude how much impact the launch of Arweave AO will have on the current public chain landscape, but after nearly two years of planning, Arweave has completed its transformation from storage business to Web3 full-stack protocol. The initial 50% increase in 24 hours is already attracting attention. It can be foreseen that Arweave’s entry will make the competition in the public chain space even more exciting.

[Disclaimer]:

According to the notice issued by the People’s Bank of China and other departments on Further Preventing and Disposing of the Risks of Speculation in Virtual Currency Trading, the content of this article is for information sharing only and does not promote or endorse any business or investment activities. Readers are required to strictly abide by local laws and regulations and refrain from participating in any illegal financial activities.

Disclaimer：

1. This article is reprinted from [ Web3 Practitioner]. Forward the Original Title‘Another ‘Ethereum Killer’. All copyrights belong to the original author Joyce, Kaori. If there are objections to this reprint, please contact the Gate Learn team, and they will handle it promptly.
2. Liability Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not constitute any investment advice.
3. Translations of the article into other languages are done by the Gate Learn team. Unless mentioned, copying, distributing, or plagiarizing the translated articles is prohibited.