An Introduction to Arweave

Before understanding AO, one must understand Arweave.

Arweave is what underpins the entire idea and (implementation) of AO.

You do not need to understand how it works in great detail, only the aspects of Arweave which make the creation of AO possible.

What is Arweave?

Arweave is a standard, traditional blockchain much like Bitcoin. Users can transfer value to one another with cryptocurrency tokens ($AR), and it is stored immutably on a global, decentralized ledger.

What makes Arweave different is that instead of having properties for smart contracts, like Ethereum for example, Arweave is solely focused on the storage of data.

Arweave's storage properties

Arweave's consensus mechanism is built to allow the cost-effective storage of data for a very long period of time, and data stored on Arweave is immutable. It cannot be tampered with, or individually removed.

Although Arweave has no properties to execute code, one must remember that code is just data. This code can be stored on Arweave, even if not executed.

It is still an immutable ledger which processes and logs different transactions, in a specific order.

The existence of such a ledger with these properties is important for AO.