Move your NFTs to Arweave Easily with ArDrive Valet
When it comes to NFTs, data loss is something that a lot of projects don’t even think about, or worse, they don’t know why they should be thinking about it. Lack of permanence is the most overlooked problem in the entire NFT space, and even the largest of projects sometimes make the mistake.
Recently, blue-chip NFT project CrypToadz made a very significant move – utilising ArDrive’s Valet service to move all its assets onto the Arweave Permaweb. By doing so they guaranteed their users would never lose their NFTs.
ArDrive has been a major player in the Arweave ecosystem, helping onboard many users to the Permaweb. ArDrive Valet makes it easy for anyone to get their files on to the Permaweb.
This includes major NFT projects!
Let’s first take a little look at the importance of permanence in the NFT space, before moving on to how ArDrive Valet is helping projects make the switch to the Permaweb.
!croak
Proud to announce that the CrypToadz assets have been moved onto @ArweaveTeam !
Thanks for working with us to get this completed and to solidify the data on your storage network. ????????
???????? https://t.co/mnv6PV0cMr
— CrypToadz ????⛓ (@cryptoadzNFT) April 27, 2022
The most overlooked problem in the NFT space
Anyone dealing with the world of non fungible tokens, aka NFTs, should have a basic understanding of how everything works, whether they are the person actually writing the smart contract for that NFT project, or not.
Unfortunately, many projects overlook the fact of permanence when it comes to the media attached to their NFT tokens.
See, for the most part, digital art and music NFTs are nothing more than tokens containing information that lives on the blockchain. The information contained within them points to the media that is, either the artwork, or the music that the end user receives.
The actual NFT tokens are permanent, as per the nature of blockchain tech, but for the underlying media, this is not always the case. Many digital art NFT projects store their artwork on non-permanent storage solutions. Using services like IPFS, Dropbox and Google Drive for their media, or storing it locally just won’t cut it, as there is always a possibility of data loss due to user error.
Arweave gives creators the solution to this problem with its Permaweb.
Offering permanence for your assets guarantees that your users will be able to enjoy their purchases for life. And vice versa, if permanence isn’t part of your project’s equation, sooner or later your users will realise this – especially if they wake up to a dead link one day. If you’re not too sure what we mean by that, take a look a this article on why Arweave is the go-to choice for many NFT creators out there.
But what happens if you already have an NFT project, but didn’t know about Arweave to begin with?
Enter ArDrive and their Valet service.
How ArDrive Valet fixes this
There was a very recent time in which the only way to interact with Arweave, and hence upload your files to its Permaweb, would have been through a Command Line Interface (CLI). Gone are those days!
ArDrive offers permanent and decentralised storage, making uploading to the Arweave Permaweb easy. Using ArDrive is a simple way to interact with Arweave, allowing anyone to seamlessly and easily get up and running.
And in the same spirit as their core apps, the team sought out to make the process of moving to Arweave as seamless as possible with ArDrive Valet. For the most part, all you have to do is send them your documents, in any format, and they’ll ensure they are saved forever.
ArDrive Valet will help you:
- Upload hundreds to thousands of files to the Arweave network though ArDrive
- Move files from Amazon Web Services, Google Drive or anywhere else and put them on permanent storage
- Create a manifest to tag and organize all the headings and metadata of your files
- Set up your crypto wallet
- Organize your files into Drives
Hence the team has it all sorted out for you, without you needing to learn any coding. There isn’t even any need to buy crypto or set up your own Arweave wallet from scratch. The team will set that up for you too.
All you need to do is ask nicely, via their website form. Just keep in mind that, since this is a curated valet service, it is not guaranteed that all projects would get accepted.
What about my NFT metadata?
All your files will be organised and tagged with the correct metadata to use as needed.
What next? Where’s customer support?
After the team has finished with the initial set up, you’ll be able to take things into your own control again. Through the ArDrive web app interface, you’ll be able to manage all your NFT’s assets and folders they are contained in, moving them and creating share links at will.
Your NFTs will essentially be ready to be used on NFT Marketplaces.
All in all, the process of keeping things organised, from here on out, will seem very familiar to anyone who has used any major online storage solution (e.g. Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud). The major difference will be that you are not paying monthly fees to store your files, while at the same time, they will be stored forever on Arweave!
Is ArDrive Valet just for NFTs?
Nope!
Even though successful NFT projects like CrypToadz by GREMPLIN and Wavelength by Kaleb Johnston have used ArDrive’s service, so have many more. Amongst them are businesses that wanted to archive their internal documents and files to share with their clientele, educators and professionals that documented their findings. This has also ben utilised by parents who wanted to preserve their precious family photos for their descendants.
Where can I learn more?
Read more about the CrypToadz journey and how they moved to Arweave, using ArDrive Valet, on the ArDrive website here.
It is worth noting that, even if you are not able to get access to ArDrive’s Valet service, simply using the ArDrive Web App and navigating ArDrive yourself is still one of the simplest ways of getting your NFT files on to Arweave. Read more on the ArDrive website, and if you have any questions, find the team on their Discord server here.
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