In early November 2021, Arweave hit an all-time market cap of just under $3 billion. This valuation happened when Arweave was just gaining traction.
In order for Arweave (AR -3.28%) to regain a billion-dollar market cap, it would need to roughly triple from today's prices. Fortunately, Arweave has already proven it has what it takes to be a billion-dollar crypto.
Image source: Getty Images.
Arweave serves a utility that is desperately needed in the crypto economy and even the world. There are no sure things in crypto, but current trends signal that Arweave is building for a better future. The more projects and applications that integrate with Arweave will be great news for the value of its token.
Founded in 2017, Arweave hopes to archive all of the world's information in a permanent fashion and in ways so that this information can't be modified. Arweave's mission is to ensure that records, documents, and images cannot be manipulated for ulterior motives.
To do this, Arweave uses something called a blockweave. It is similar to a blockchain but adds a few wrinkles.
The blockweave incentivizes miners to store as much info as long as possible. To successfully mine a block they must prove they have data from not only the previous, block but also one other randomly selected block. The more data miners store, the more likely they will earn the block rewards.
Arweave's model works like this: If you have information you would like to store permanently you use AR tokens to buy gigabytes of storage. There is no recurring payment. This is a one-time payment for permanent storage.
It is also smart-contract compatible. Decentralized apps (dApps) that use Arweave data are permanent as well. To make things easily accessible, Arweave has a browser extension that allows users to access all data stored on Arweave through their favorite internet browser.
Projects are starting to use Arweave
Arweave is slowly proving that the development of Web3.0 is dependent on permanent storage. Web3.0 is the term used to describe a new paradigm of the internet. Instead of relying on centralized structures of Web2.0, Web3.0 will be decentralized, secure, and interoperable between all kinds of applications.
An open-source tool known as the Web3 Index has created a methodology to help quantify which blockchains are most in-demand across Web3.0. At the top of that list is Arweave. Web3.0 blockchains like The Graph, Near Protocol, Polygon, Avalanche, Solana, and Polkadot all integrate with Arweave to store data permanently.
As more blockchains use Arweave, the utility of its token will become more widespread. And the more utility it provides, the higher its price will rise, a phenomenon known as the network effect.
Arweave by the numbers
The Arweave Explorer allows investors to look at the crypto's statistics.
According to the Explorer, the record for most transactions in a month hit a record in March 2022 when there were more than 50 million in just a 30-day span. In the same month of 2021, there were barely 1 million.
Since Arweave is essentially a data storage protocol, it can help to see how much data has actually been stored on the blockweave. In just the month of May 2022, a record 8.35 terabytes of data was added to Arweave. In May 2021, that number was only 831 gigabytes. That is just shy of an astounding 1,000% increase.
The future of Arweave
Arweave hopes to attract customers outside of just crypto. Founder Sam Williams believes we can't trust governments and businesses to store their own data due to the possibility of information being censored. In his eyes, "You can't do permanent storage as a company because you can never trust the company not to change the business model, not to make an error."
A small but recent example comes from January 2020. There were reports that images of a Women's March in 2017 stored by the National Archive were altered to remove particular aspects of the picture. The National Archive admitted that it blurred certain signs held by marchers in the photograph that were critical of the sitting administration and current legislation.
Now this is just a picture, but those signs that were blurred gave the picture a a particular context on sentiment by protestors in that time and place in history. Sam Williams created Arweave to ensure that current and historical documents are not altered. When governments can change documents and photos, they can potentially change the narrative. His goal was to make a censorship-resistant storage solution that anyone could use.
A recent Forbes article proved how Arweave is being used to ensure that history isn't rewritten on events revolving around the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Arweave has become the home for storing videos, documents, articles, and social media posts related to the war in an effort to help preserve the true narrative as the events have unfolded.
Arweave has also been utilized by democracy activists in Hong Kong. After the Chinese government dismantled the pro-democracy newspaper Apple Daily, supporters uploaded old articles to Arweave to ensure those stories are around forever.
Arweave's utility in the world will continue to grow due to the value it provides. As more users look for decentralized, immutable storage solutions, Arweave will cement itself as the industry standard for more than just blockchains.
