What is Arweave?
Arweave is a decentralized blockchain built for permanent data storage. By paying a one-time fee, you publish your data to a network of miners that store and replicate it indefinitely. Think of it as “Bitcoin for immutable information.”
Why Permanent Storage?
Section titled “Why Permanent Storage?”Digital content can vanish over time—links break, servers retire and data disappears. Permanent storage addresses:
- Link Rot: URLs decay and web pages vanish, threatening academic citations, legal records, and cultural archives.
- Data Integrity: Immutable records ensure that once data is written, it cannot be altered or censored.
- Long-Term Access: Scientific datasets, legal documents, and creative works remain accessible to future generations.
Real-World Use Cases
Section titled “Real-World Use Cases”- Private Archives: Services like ArDrive let you store confidential documents and photos securely.
- Code Preservation: Platforms such as Protocol.Land archive critical software repositories and dependency histories.
- Cultural Heritage: Museums and libraries can safeguard digital art, manuscripts, and historical records without risk of deletion.
How Arweave’s Storage Model Works
Section titled “How Arweave’s Storage Model Works”Arweave uses two pricing components to ensure data remains online indefinitely:
- Storage Endowment A conservative, long‑term estimate based on declining hardware costs funds a storage pool. That pool pays miners over time to keep data available.
- Immediate Miner Reward A small, upfront token incentive encourages miners to add new data to their nodes quickly.
Together, these mechanisms align miner incentives with the goal of permanent, reliable storage.
For a deep dive into the economics, see Arweave’s Storage Endowment guide.
Get Started
Section titled “Get Started”Explore the Arweave developer docs and start publishing your first data transaction: