How to Buy Arweave (AR)
Beginner’s Guide
What Is Arweave (AR)?
Arweave is a decentralized storage network that seeks to offer a platform for the indefinite storage of data. Describing itself as “a collectively owned hard drive that never forgets,” the network primarily hosts “the permaweb” — a permanent, decentralized web with a number of community-driven applications and platforms.
To learn more about this project, check out our deep dive of Arweave.
The Arweave network uses a native cryptocurrency, AR, to pay “miners” to indefinitely store the network’s information.
The project was first announced as Archain in August 2017, later rebranding to Arweave in February 2018 and officially launching in June 2018.
How to Buy Arweave Summary
- Get a Arweave wallet (e.g. Ledger, Trezor , Exodus, Guarda, AtomicWallet)
- Find an exchange that sells Arweave (e.g. Crypto.com, Binance , OKX, Bybit, Kucoin)
- Deposit money and make the trade
- Withdraw the Arweave to your wallet
Buying Arweave in 3 Simple Steps
Step 1 – Get a AR wallet
Arweave Hardware Wallets
As far as I know, there is no dedicated hardware wallet available for Arweave (AR) at the moment. However, Arweave is an ERC-20 token, which means it can be stored on any hardware wallet that supports Ethereum and ERC-20 tokens. Some popular hardware wallets that support ERC-20 tokens include Ledger, Trezor, and KeepKey.
Before purchasing a hardware wallet, be sure to verify its compatibility with Arweave (AR) and follow the manufacturer’s instructions for setting up and using the wallet securely. Additionally, make sure to keep your seed phrase or recovery phrase safe and private, as it is essential for restoring access to your wallet in case of loss or damage to the hardware wallet.
The best option for storing any cryptocurrency would be to use a hardware wallet. These are pieces of hardware that store the private key to your coins offline.
Today, there are two leading hardware manufacturers to choose from – Ledger and TREZOR. Both companies have different models of hardware wallets that will get the job done.
If you want deeper insights on specific models, you can read my Ledger Nano X review or my TREZOR Model T review.
Arweave Software Wallets
Arweave (AR) is an ERC-20 token, which means it can be stored on any software wallet that supports Ethereum and ERC-20 tokens. Some popular software wallets that support ERC-20 tokens include MyEtherWallet, MetaMask, and Trust Wallet.
To use a software wallet to store your Arweave (AR) tokens, you’ll need to create a new wallet or import your existing wallet that holds your ERC-20 tokens. Then, you can add Arweave (AR) to your wallet by selecting the “Add Token” option and entering the contract address of the token, which is available on the Arweave website or on Etherscan.
Before using any software wallet, make sure to follow the manufacturer’s instructions for setting up and using the wallet securely, including protecting your private keys or seed phrase. It is recommended to use a strong and unique password, enable two-factor authentication (2FA), and avoid sharing your sensitive information with anyone.
Hardware wallets cost money, so if you’re not sure how serious you are about cryptocurrencies and just want to get a taste of what they feel like, perhaps you would be better off starting with a software wallet.
A software wallet is a free program that lets you store your coins on your computer or mobile phone.
The easiest Arweave coin software wallets to get started with are undoubtedly Exodus, AtomicWallet and Guarda . All wallets are very intuitive. Exodus, Atomic Wallet and Guarda is available on desktop for Windows, Mac and Linux, as well as on mobile for both iOS and Android. If you want more information you can read my Exodus, AtomicWallet and Guarda review.
Step 2 – Find an Arweave (AR) Exchange
Buy Arweave through Crypto.com
- Crypto.com is a cryptocurrency exchange company based in Singapore. As of May 2022, the company reportedly had 50 million customers and 4,000 employees. The exchange issues a token, Cronos. The company was initially founded in Hong Kong by Bobby Bao, Gary Or, Kris Marszalek, and Rafael Melo in 2016 as “Monaco”. In 2018, the company was renamed as Crypto.com following a purchase of a domain owned by cryptography researcher and professor Matt Blaze. Domain sellers valued the domain at US$5–10 million.
Buy Arweave through Binance
- Binance is a cryptocurrency exchange which is the largest exchange in the world in terms of daily trading volume of cryptocurrencies. It was founded in 2017 and is registered in the Cayman Islands. Binance was founded by Changpeng Zhao, a developer who had previously created high frequency trading software.
Buy Arweave through Okex
- OKX (Chinese: 欧易), formerly known as OKEx, is a Seychelles-based cryptocurrency exchange and derivatives exchange. It was founded by Star Xu (徐明星) in 2017. OKX is owned by Ok Group, which also owns crypto exchange Okcoin. It is not available to US based investors. The company’s CEO is Jay Hao and CMO is Haider Rafique. Initially headquartered in Beijing, China, OKX is now under a blanket ban by Chinese regulators. On October 13, 2021, it issued a “Notice on Regulatory Policy in Mainland China”, announcing that it would continue its policy of “withdrawing from the Chinese mainland market” and would not establish an office or team in the region. However, according to Caixin, although the exchange officially announced that it would no longer set up an office in Mainland China, it still has a large number of R&D staff working in the region, including engineers, who continue to work for OKX in the form of third-party outsourcing companies.
Buy Arweave through Bybit
- The exchange prides itself on delivering multilingual online support to its customers and is committed to providing a transparent and efficient trading experience. The products on the platform include BTC/USD, ETH/USD, LTC/USD, and XRP/USD perpetual contracts. A perpetual contract resembles a traditional futures contract in many ways. Its main difference, however, is that it doesn’t have an expiry date. Hence, traders are allowed to hold their positions for as long as they need to.Moreover, the exchange boasts a 100,000 TPS state-of-the-art matching engine. While many of its competitors have suffered from repeated overload problems, this high-performance matching engine makes it possible for Bybit to stand above the competition.The Bybit cryptocurrency broker platform is operated by the Bybit Fintech Limited which is registered on the British Virgin Islands, with headquarters in Singapore. The company was launched in March 2018, making it a fairly young player on the market.
Buy Arweave through Kucoin
- Kucoin is a global cryptocurrency exchange for numerous digital assets and cryptocurrencies. Launched in September 2017, KuCoin has grown into one of the most popular crypto exchanges and already has over 8 million registered users from 700+ countries and regions. According to Alexa traffic ranking, KuCoin’s monthly unique ranking is in the top 5 globally. Known as the “People’s Exchange”, KuCoin operates in Seychelles, providing users with multi-language and 24/7 customer service. Meanwhile, KuCoin has established local communities all over the world in South Korea, Japan, Spain, Italy, Vietnam, Turkey, Russia, India, and other regions, providing users with the most local services. Currently, 1 out of every 4 crypto holders in the world is with KuCoin.
Step 3 – Withdraw Your Arweave (AR)
To withdraw Arweave (AR) from an exchange, you will typically need to follow these general steps:
Log in to your account on the exchange where your AR is held.
Navigate to the “Withdraw” or “Send” section of the exchange.
Select AR as the cryptocurrency you want to withdraw.
Enter the wallet address where you want to send your AR. Be sure to double-check the address to ensure that it is correct, as sending AR to the wrong address can result in a loss of funds.
Enter the amount of AR you want to withdraw. Be sure to check the withdrawal fee, as this will be subtracted from your total withdrawal amount.
Review and confirm the transaction details, including the withdrawal address and the amount of AR being withdrawn.
Complete any two-factor authentication or other security steps required by the exchange.
Submit the withdrawal request.
The time it takes for your AR to arrive in your wallet can vary depending on network congestion and other factors. Once your AR has been sent to your wallet, you should see the transaction appear in your wallet’s transaction history.
It’s important to note that some exchanges may have withdrawal limits or require additional verification before allowing you to withdraw AR or other cryptocurrencies, so be sure to check the exchange’s policies and procedures before attempting to withdraw your funds. Additionally, it’s important to exercise caution and do your own research before buying or selling any cryptocurrency, as the market can be volatile and unpredictable.
OVERVIEW
Who Are the Founders of Arweave?
Arweave was founded by Sam Williams and William Jones, two Ph.D. candidates at the University of Kent. Williams came to the project with experience in decentralized and distributed systems, having developed an operating system called HydrOS as a part of his studies, while Jones’ focus was on graph theory and neural networking. While Williams dropped out of graduate school to focus on the company, Jones left the project early on in mid-2018 and completed his Ph.D.
According to Williams, he came up with the idea while walking up a mountain in Scotland, later bringing the concept to Jones, with whom he developed the technical details. After launching Arweave, Williams was later named an advisor to Minespider, a company providing blockchain-based supply chain tracking for the raw materials industry, and he has served as a mentor for the Techstars accelerator program.
Although Arweave was founded with centralized leadership, it launched a decentralized autonomous organization in January 2020 comprised of core community members to further the development and expansion of the network and its ecosystem.
What Makes Arweave Unique?
Arweave is a blockchain-based network that aims to provide permanent, decentralized storage for web-based data and applications. What makes Arweave unique is its ability to store data on a blockchain in a way that is both cost-effective and permanent.
Arweave uses a novel consensus mechanism called “Proof of Access” (PoA), which is designed to incentivize users to store and replicate data over time. With PoA, users can mine and stake AR tokens to become network “miners” or “archivers”, responsible for storing and replicating data across the network. In exchange for their contributions, they receive rewards in the form of AR tokens.
Arweave also uses a unique data storage system that allows data to be stored on the blockchain permanently, without the need for periodic renewals or payments. This is achieved through the use of a “blockweave” structure, which creates a directed acyclic graph (DAG) of blocks that links data together in a way that is resistant to tampering or deletion.
Overall, Arweave’s combination of innovative consensus mechanism, permanent storage, and low-cost data storage has made it a popular platform for developers and users seeking a decentralized storage solution for web-based data and applications.
According to its yellow paper, Arweave seeks to ensure the “collective ability to store and share information between individuals and across time to new generations.” In order to accomplish this goal, its flagship permaweb is built on top of Arweave’s “blockweave,” a variation of blockchain technology in which each block is linked to both the one immediately prior and also a random earlier one. Arweave says this incentivizes miners to store more data because they need to be able to access random previous blocks to add new ones and receive rewards.
Arweave is focused on building a sustainable ecosystem around the network. In June 2020, it unveiled “profit sharing tokens,” which allow developers to receive dividends when network transaction fees are generated from their application, and it hosts incubators to support the building of permaweb-based apps. The project also works with startups through its “Boost” program, offering free storage and access to the Arweave team and industry investors.
In March 2020, Arweave announced that it had received $8.3 million in funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures and Coinbase Ventures. This followed an earlier November 2019 investment also from Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures, as well as Multicoin Capital.
How Many Arweave (AR) Coins Are There in Circulation?
According to its yellow paper, Arweave has a maximum token supply of 66 million AR. 55 million AR was minted when the blockweave’s genesis block was created in June 2018, and an additional 11 million will be gradually introduced as block rewards.
Arweave held a token pre-sale event in August 2017 in which 10.8% of the initially generated token supply was sold, and two public sales were completed in May 2018 and June 2018 in which 7.1% and 1.1% of the supply was sold, respectively. The company allocated an additional 19.5% for a private sale, 2.9% for project advisors, 13% for the team (subject to a five-year lock-up with 20% released per year), 19.1% for ecosystem development, and 26.5% for future project use (subject to a five-year lock-up with 20% released per year).
How Is the Arweave Network Secured?
The Arweave network is secured through a combination of proof-of-work (PoW) and proof-of-access (PoA) consensus mechanisms.
PoW is used to mine blocks on the Arweave network and secure the blockchain. In Arweave’s case, the PoW algorithm used is a variant of the Equihash algorithm, which is designed to be memory-hard and resistant to ASIC-based mining. This is intended to promote a more decentralized network by allowing anyone with a GPU to participate in the mining process.
In addition to PoW, the Arweave network uses a unique consensus mechanism called “Proof of Access” (PoA). PoA is designed to incentivize users to store and replicate data over time. With PoA, users can mine and stake AR tokens to become network “miners” or “archivers”, responsible for storing and replicating data across the network. In exchange for their contributions, they receive rewards in the form of AR tokens.
The combination of PoW and PoA is intended to create a secure and decentralized network that is resistant to attacks and tampering. Additionally, Arweave’s use of a “blockweave” structure, which creates a directed acyclic graph (DAG) of blocks that links data together, makes it more difficult for attackers to modify or delete data on the network.
Overall, the combination of these security mechanisms makes the Arweave network a resilient and secure platform for decentralized, permanent data storage.
The Arweave network is built on a modified version of blockchain technology it calls “blockweave,” which uses a “proof-of-access” consensus algorithm — a modified version of proof-of-work. With PoA, each new block is not only linked to the one immediately prior to it but to a random previous block as well, and both blocks are hashed to generate the new one. Miners are not required to store an entire blockchain, but they are incentivized to store more information to prove they can access the old blocks that are required to mine a new one.
The mining protocol used by Arweave, RandomX, was successfully audited by four cybersecurity firms — Trail of Bits, Kudelski Security, X41 D-Sec and QuarksLab — in August 2019. The project plans to utilize a new mining algorithm starting in early 2021 known as SPoRA, which it said in December 2020 had been audited by NCC Group.
Where Can You Buy Arweave (AR)?
Arweave (AR) is listed on several major cryptocurrency exchanges, and it can be purchased using a variety of trading pairs. Some of the most popular exchanges where you can buy Arweave include:
Binance: Binance is one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, and it offers several AR trading pairs, including AR/BTC and AR/USDT.
Huobi Global: Huobi Global is another popular cryptocurrency exchange that offers AR trading pairs, including AR/BTC and AR/USDT.
KuCoin: KuCoin is a global cryptocurrency exchange that offers AR trading pairs, including AR/BTC and AR/USDT.
Bitfinex: Bitfinex is a cryptocurrency exchange that offers AR trading pairs, including AR/USD and AR/BTC.
Gate.io: Gate.io is a cryptocurrency exchange that offers AR trading pairs, including AR/USDT and AR/BTC.
It’s important to note that the availability of AR trading pairs and the fees associated with trading AR can vary depending on the exchange you use. Before trading AR, it’s important to do your own research and compare the features and fees of different exchanges to find the one that best meets your needs. Additionally, it’s important to exercise caution and do your own research before buying or selling any cryptocurrency, as the market can be volatile and unpredictable.