Wrapped AR Unlocks Powerful New Use Cases for the Arweave Ecosystem

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Wrapped AR (wAR) just landed, and will enable a range of exciting new use cases for Arweave token holders and builders inside the ecosystem. The everFinance, creators of DeFi application everPay, published a multi-signature wallet that will make it possible to lock AR and mint wAR – a wrapped version of the AR token that works on the Ethereum network.

For the uninitiated, wrapped tokens allow interoperability between chains. The Arweave blockweave and Ethereum blockchain are not directly compatible, but by wrapping AR as an ERC20 token, it allows AR to be pooled, farmed, staked and swapped like any other token in the DeFi space.

What is wAR?

wAR is an ERC20 token (contract address) created by everFinance. everFinance is the source responsible for facilitating the swap, which means AR goes into their custody and they provide wAR in return. Every wAR token has 1:1 value with AR and can be swapped back to the native token at any time.

wAR – what is it good for?

Wrapped AR provides Arweave token holders access to the Ethereum ecosystem of dApps, and more swap choices. If you hold AR and swap it for wAR, the wAR can subsequently be traded for any token supported by Uniswap.

A wAR pool is currently active on Uniswap here.

As well as swapping from AR to wAR to use Ethereum services, users can buy wAR and swap it for native AR. The reasoning behind this, as everFinance states, is that it is difficult to obtain AR in a decentralized way:

[before wAR] users can merely obtain a small amount of AR through ARfaucet, or purchase some AR on the centralized exchanges such as Binance […] we are in desperate need of a decentralized way to directly obtain AR.

wAR makes it possible to easily swap ETH for AR while avoiding Binance, which has a patchy history of supporting withdrawals to Arweave wallets from the exchange. This is important to support the ecosystem since AR is necessary to use Arweave apps like ArDrive, Koii, decent.land, CommunityXYZ and more.

The mechanics of wrapping AR

The everFinance ensures wAR is pegged 1:1 to AR and facilitates the exchange by using a combination of three nodes: a coordinator verifies and includes transactions on the chain, watchmen load transactions from Arweave, obtain state, then verify transactions to create proposals for ProposalHub. ProposalHub executes the transaction, whether that’s for AR ➞ wAR or vice-versa. The whole process can be monitored by anyone using a detector.

(Source)

How to get wAR

Since it was recently listed on CoinGecko, wAR is discoverable on Uniswap via search. Holders of any Uniswap-supported token (ETH, DAI, USDT, USDC, WBTC) can swap these for wAR on the Ethereum main network, for example by using Metamask. Using everPay, it’s possible to deposit AR and withdraw wAR for a fee of 0.1 AR. Despite the mint cost of wAR being between $10-20 USD, everFinance for now will pay subsidies for users and charge only 0.1 AR.

Learn more about wAR on everFinance’s Medium, and join their Discord community to ask any follow-up questions.

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