What is AR Token (Arweave)?

AR token is a native token of Arweave, which is a decentralized permanent storage platform. The AR token has a maximum supply of 66 million tokens, of which 55 million were minted when the genesis block was established at the mainnet launch. The remaining tokens (11 million AR) are meant to be used for miner rewards. ​​

This token will become deflationary once all 66 million AR tokens will be minted. However, it’s definitely worth mentioning that the AR token grew 600% in its value after the first half of 2021.

Since AR is a native token of Arweave, it can be used in various ways across the ecosystem of this network. The main ways to use AR tokens include:

• To pay incentives to storage providers (Arweave does that only in AR).
• To pay distribution storage fees to acquire data storage on Arweave.
• To interact with various decentralized apps (DApps) built on Arweave.
• To use it as a cryptocurrency for all types of transaction fees associated with data storage and recovery.

What Is Arweave?

Arweave is a new type of decentralized storage that uses innovative technologies including blockweave, permaweb, and Proof of Access (PoA) to allow users to store data indefinitely. Blockweave and PoA are the core parts of this network.

Blockweave stores both transactional and data information, unlike blockchains that are often used to develop crypto projects. Besides, there is another difference in terms of block connection between these two. In a blockchain, each block connects to the previous one while in a blockweave, a previous block is connected to a randomly selected block (a recall block).

Talking about PoA, it is an alternative to the standard blockchain consensus mechanism. Because of it, Arweave miners don’t need to keep all blocks in their storage which results in decreased electricity consumption.

Permaweb, a layer created on top of Arweave, is another component of this network. Permaweb is the storehouse for all decentralized apps, so it's also entirely decentralized.

It might seem that Arweave is a complicated mechanism. However, all of the complicated processes are only on its back-end. Its front-end, which is intuitively designed with the user in mind, is what makes it an easy-to-use platform. All you have to do is download an Arweave browser extension to store website pages on the network.

Besides, one of the main features of Arweave is its immutability in consideration of data storage on the network. Since the applications are permanent, immutability can be found in every area. Even the developers don’t have the ability to alter the rules. So, Arweave is definitely an immutable and decentralized network.