The Next 8 Permaweb Apps to Watch Out For

The fourth edition of Arweave‘s Open Web Foundry is underway and already showcasing exciting new use cases for the permaweb. In the past, OWF has funded Ardrive, Verto, ArGo, KYVE, Redstone and many other core parts of the ecosystem, and this time we’re set to see more exciting ideas come to life.

The Open Web Foundry is still under way and accepting applications, so if you have an idea that can make use of Arweave’s permanent storage protocol, don’t hesitate to apply.

For now, here are the 8 ideas showcased in the OWF community spotlights (here and here) on gather.town so far.

Traxa.io

Traxa.io is a permanent app solving a critical global problem – non-proprietary geo-tracking for shipping containers. As you might notice when tracking parcels across different carriers, containers have unique IDs, but there is no global database. Shockingly in the 21st century, container IDs are passed between companies over telephone – this is badly centralized, and carriers are often not willing to share data.

“My company is perpetuating the problem”, says Chris Machut, Traxa’s founder as well as the founder of web2 shipping container tracking technologies Netarus and SiteTrax.io. While logistics corporations may not be willing to share their container locations and IDs, truckers that handle the transportation are often independent contractors. Traxa.io’s idea is to incentivize truckers to upload the data for a reward and the good of the rest of the shipping community. Right now, Traxa is looking for a CTO – check the job posting and get in touch on Twitter for more information.

DeChat

DeChat is a decentralized, censorship resistant Twitter clone, created in response to the injustice of Twitter’s ban policies. It’s built to have a lot in common with the UI of Twitter, making it easier for web2 users to bridge the gap. Web2 social media platforms have long struggled with the question of how best to monetize their userbase. For many, ads are unwelcome and ineffective. Similarly, subscription paywalls have been piloted and failed time and time again.

With web3, incentives can be completely different. The network can collect a nominal amount of tokens from new signups which can be returned upon exit, and stake those tokens at a yield farm. This income stream can create revenue for the founders and a way to compensate active, popular members of the community. In the OWF community spotlight, founder David Choi states that the heart of DeChat is a SmartWeave contract that rewards people who are creating the most engaged-with content, are distributes the app’s native PST. The AR stake required to make an account acts as a way to monetize the platform and – very importantly for a social network – a way for users to be slashed for malicious activity.

Argora

Argora is a permanent social network aiming to be the place where permaweb enthusiasts hang out and chat. It takes its name from the agora – the ancient Greek word for a meeting place that hosts conversations on culture, politics, and other hot issues of the era. Like other permaweb apps, Argora puts emphasis on closing the gap between web2 and web3, leveraging the benefit that web3 has where a wallet can always be used as a method of verification.

“There is currently no way to earn money from your social media activity. Web2 platforms such as Facebook and Twitter make billions of dollars off of their users by selling your data to third parties. With Argora, we are studying mechanisms to give the ability for users to monetize their own data rather than giving it away for free to large corporations” – Axel, Argora founder

Argora will make use of ArConnect, WeaveID, and ArVerify to unite the Arweave community and ecosystem apps in one common meeting place. To make the transition from web2 easier, Argora will add buttons to share Argora toots on Twitter, embed them on sites, generate shortlinks, and more. The alpha prototype is already active here.

MyMail

MyMail bridges the gap between traditional web2 SMTP servers and web3 email alternatives such as wevemail. With centralized services, companies own your identity as well as the ability to lock you in, censor you, and mine data from personal communications. MyMail provides an inbox aggregating connected SMTP email accounts with Arweave-based email, so users don’t have to give up their tried-and-true mail services while still being able to conveniently utilize wevemail with the goal of leaving web2 email behind. Since email has had such a strong network effect and it’s not reasonable to expect every contact to have an Arweave wallet or even check their wevemail regularly, it’s crucial to provide a bridge while users transition – MyMail will be that bridge.

Akord

Akord is a way to guarantee the existence and integrity of digital heritage, both for families and organizations. The app offers a ‘social vault’ where people can share and public media privately and permanently. To give the example of families, it would be possible for family members to interact with the feed of their vault through the ages. The vision is that Akord bridges the generations and has records of social history spanning hundreds of years.

To make it simple for users to join up and get started, Akord plans on setting up credit card on-ramps for AR – if the crypto aspect of the app can be abstracted away, it’s a benefit for adoption right now. The Akord team currently relies on some centralized service providers for hosting and email delivery but plans to go fully decentralized as the next roadmap step.

Art By City

Art By City is a permaweb app for artists to share work in a social media-like setting. By creating a PSC, Art By City is able to reward artists when their work is liked, reposted, or tipped by others.

Talking at the Open Web Foundry community spotlight, founder Jim Toth highlighted the importance of verification for artists to avoid impersonation; when art is equated with money and token rewards, the incentive to fake a popular artist’s identity is high.Art By City will attempt to address this by verifying an artist’s persona with their Arweave wallet.

What started as a web2 project evolved naturally to web3 – “Every artist we talk to is extremely excited by the possibility of their data being there forever – they go almost manic and start thinking of new projects immediately”, Jim told the crowd at the Open Web Foundry event. Check out Art By City on GitLab here.

AFTR Market

AFTR Market seeks to solve the issue of treasury management in the Arweave ecosystem. It provides a foundational base layer protocol to manage AR and PST treasuries, and is aimed at any PSC that needs to group, encapsulate, slice or manage their tokens. At the heart of the protocol is a SmartWeave contract with the ability to take custody of PSTs. The developer, Joe Berenbaum, describes it as the “mutual fund of Arweave PSTs”.

As for the tokenomics, AFTR tokens are generated by interacting with apps that use the AFTR Market treasury contract, and distributed among AFTR token holders. Interactions with the contract take tips in AR, linking AFTR to tangible value.

Polyweave RC

Polyweave RC is a public proof-of-concept for gaming on the blockweave. The game is a time-trial racing simulator which uploads high scores to the Polygon network. The game is written and built with Unity but deployed to Arweave via arkb.

Leon, the developer, states that the idea is not the game but the concept of games which utilize smart contracts and are stored forever on the blockweave. Users can connect the game to Metamask to upload their high scores by interacting with a Polygon smart contract.