Thursday, June 20, 2024
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2022-10-07
By Pierre
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Arweave Ecosystem Weekly Report #57: The ‘Looks Better Than Ever’ Edition

This week on Arweave can be defined through a single word: clarity. After the Arweave in Asia event, the one packed with all the announcements, this week, we actually had the time to take each announcement and dissect them. We learned more about Forward Research and even more about Arweave 2.6.

On top of those, ArDrive just released its mobile version for Android users. This alone, on other weeks, would have been a highlight on its own. Quoting our colleague Az from a group discussion earlier today:

Not gonna lie, the Arweave ecosystem is looking better than ever.

I. Arweave Network

Arweave, as a protocol, is reaching its maturity. After version 2.6 is on air, it is expected that rather few changes will occur in the network’s design. It will become a strong bedrock for a thriving new Web. Probably there are very few protocols that are that close to completion and still that early from a user perspective. At the end of last month, there were only shy of over 135k Arweave wallet addresses. The size of a small town. A cozy town where you can focus on building.

What’s even more interesting is the fact that this number is misleading in a way that many don’t expect. Take any other Web3 protocol: the total number of addresses is obviously greater than the number of individuals that actually interacted with that protocol. A user tends to have more than one address. In the case of Arweave, this may not be the case. Because of Bundlr, a lot of individuals are using Arweave without having an Arweave address, hell, in some cases, people are using Arweave without even knowing it.

II. Arweave Ecosystem

ArDrive goes mobile

“Big” is an understatement when trying to describe this piece of news. We have to admit it: nowadays, web interactions are mostly mobile. Web3 is still entrenched in classical browser-based interactions, and that hurts the user experience. I personally experienced the lack of mobile integrations with Arweave while I was at Arweave in Asia event.

If it weren’t for @permapages, who graciously stepped in and uploaded it, probably by the time I got to my laptop, I would have been too tired to do it. ArDrive just released this potential frustration from the shoulders of arweavers (or, for now, at least from the shoulders of arweavers that are Android users). ArDrive Mobile dApp, the first of its kind, lets everyone save everything into permanence with only a finger tap because, yeap, it has biometric login for a smooth experience. 

Forward Research kick-off symposium

A lot of this week’s news is still in direct relation to the event that happened in Singapore. The number and the importance of announcements made on that day were huge. As Sam said, it represented the culmination of almost one and a half years of work. Fully understanding their implication will take weeks, even months, of further unveiling one by one. One of those directions is Forward Research. Remember Open Web Foundry? We wrote quite extensively about them. Imagine an even better organisation for incubating Arweave native projects than OWF. That’s Forward Research, the evolution of OWF. First announced at Arweave in Asia event, now they fully revealed themselves through an online symposium.

We were present there, and we have a full report of the event, the single thing we are waiting for before releasing it is the unfolding of the event below The second Forward research event that’s focusing only on Arweave Protocol 2.6. So, if you missed one of those two, don’t worry, we’ll get you covered.

The beta iteration of EXM is now out in the wild

Not so long ago, we had an interview with Andres Pirela where we talked beside others about his Execution Machine. Back then, a developer had to ask for access to test the implementation. Now EXM beta is totally open for everyone who wants to test it. Execution Machine is one of the first projects built under the new development paradigm on Arweave revealed by Tate Tanenbraun at the Arweave in Asia event. Through Community Labs, projects that will deliver developer tooling that will abstract the usual Web3 clunky interactions will gradually appear and will represent the glue between the protocol and new generations of dApp developers. So yeah, cheers to EXM, being the first from a bunch that will literally help history to be written.

The last call for Arweave native projects that want to attend ETH Lisbon

You probably already know about the fact that Arweave will be present at ETH Lisbon, what you don’t know is that, building on the success of the Arweave in Asia event, Arweave is preparing something a little more than just casual participation: a special day called Arweave in Lisbon. So, if you are a project founder interested in attending, contact Amelia from Bundlr or us directly until 12 October, and let’s create the biggest Arweave meeting ever.

Akord – New Protocol, new app

One of the announcements from – you guessed it – Arweave in Asia, was made by Akord – they open-sourced their entire protocol. Now their vaults can be integrated by different dApps and become actual containers of data that can be moved from dApp to dApp. All this without losing the ownership of the data that’s inside the vault. Now they doubled down and presented the new version of the Akord App. The user experience does not differ much, but be assured, there’s a brand-new roaring engine under the hood.

Community Labs ideas for weekend projects

The talk of the town for the last month was definitely Community Labs, the project that raised over 30 million $ and has a teenage founder. In fact, there was probably more talk about them in the community than they managed to share about themselves. In order to transform all that talk into meaningful energy, they just released a thread with homework for the entire space: twelve ideas for weekend projects. Do you want to join Community Labs in their quest to deliver tools for devs? Pick one idea and transform it into reality.

 

Arweave News is launching Arweave News Specials

Yeap, it’s that moment when we slip news about ourselves. Our presence at Arweave in Asia helped us to conduct a series of exclusive interviews with project founders. Rough, almost unedited materials that represent the thoughts of individuals that are building on Arweave and, in the process, are building the future of Arweave and of the Web itself. While we still figure out the definitive content delivery format, a thing is certain: this is only the beginning of Arweave News Specials series, and you have to expect 1 to 1 physical interviews more often. 

Below is just a part of those who joined us in the first round of interviews. Can you guess who those four founders are? But what about the ones yet to be revealed?

III. Things you won’t encounter on Arweave

Again, Akord is responsible for hitting the bull’s eye with this one. Still, our own take on the same piece of news will focus on a slightly different angle:

It will take a few months for the deal to complete before I’m actually in control.

This is Elon Musk talking about how he will secure the right to free speech by taking control of Twitter. No person on Arweave will use the term “control” as a prerequisite for enforcing rights because we all know that whenever one person tries to gain control over something, with all their good intentions, they’ll become the single point of failure for the entire venture. Decentralisation is not a buzzword, and Arweave’s community is fully committed to perfecting it. Only through provable decentralised protocols, as Akord highlights, the free speech could be granted.

IV. ICYMI

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Pierre

Passionate about Arweave, Archeology, and NFTs. Playing with words, dirt, and images.

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