Arweave(AR)

Overview

Arweave (AR) is a decentralized storage protocol designed to keep data permanently, launched in 2017 by Sam Williams and collaborators. It uses a data structure called the blockweave together with a Proof of Access consensus mechanism, which requires miners to reference and retain earlier block data when producing new blocks. Users pay a single upfront fee to upload data under a model the project describes as 'Pay Once, Store Forever'.

AR, the network's native token, is used to pay storage fees and to reward miners, with a capped total supply of 66 million tokens. A portion of each fee is placed into a storage endowment that is released to miners over time, a design based on the assumption that data storage costs continue to decline. Common use cases include archiving blockchain data, hosting NFT metadata, and preserving web content where censorship resistance is a requirement.