Arweave April 2021 Ecosystem Update: First Arweave conference, more NFTs, podcasts, & much more!
This month has seen incredible activity in the Arweave ecosystem, from even more NFT projects using the protocol, to the very first Arweave conference, to vital new tools like arkb being added to the protocol. Read on to learn more!
ArConf#1
This month saw the very first Arweave conference, ArConf#1! This inaugural, invite-only event welcomed key figures from across the whole Arweave ecosystem. From developers & builders to end users & evangelists, many gathered for this capstone event rounding off our recent Open Web Foundry incubator programme.
We kicked off the day with Founder Talks from leading ecosystem creators, hearing pitches from Foundry participants in the Demo Day session on everything from new NFT platforms to social media apps, and then rounded off the conference with a Jobs Fair!
We’ll be covering the projects presented in this ecosystem update, but you can check out the whole event on YouTube now! Follow us on Twitter to learn more about future events and nab your own invite.
Profit Sharing Community Updates
The th8ta team is behind such innovative, ecosystem-leading tools such as Verto.Exchange and ArConnect. Here are updates from the team’s impressive work this month — for more updates, check out the team’s blog.
ArConnect: Simple, secure Arweave wallet management tool
- Lead Developer Marton Lederer delivered a Founder Talk at ArConf#1 — watch the video here.
- The integration with ArDrive for page and PDF archiving using ArConnect is now live!
- UX improvement features added, including the ability to export & import your config settings simply & easily
- API updates, including encryption support
Verto.Exchange: Leading profit sharing token exchange
- Verto Co-Founder Tate Berenbaum delivered a Founder Talk during ArConf#1 — watch the video here.
- Major codebase refactoring to the Verto protocol this month, significantly boosting security & stability.
- Development work is paving the way for massive speed improvements (over 100x!) and for an even better interface for other tokens that are not Arweave profit sharing tokens… Follow the team on Twitter for future exciting updates!
- Join the Verto team on Discord here.
Sarcophagus: A decentralised dead man’s switch
- A fully-functional testnet is now available — you can help test out Sarcophagus on the testnet here.
- Mainnet development continues at pace, testing is now underway.
- Launch of the Aragon DAO.
- Stablecoin liquidity mining hit $4.5m TVL, up from an average of $1.5m over the past few months.
- The team participated in the Open World Collective Demo Day — watch the presentation here.
- Follow Sarcophagus on Twitter here, on Discord here, and on Telegram here.
ArDrive: Offering permanent, immutable file storage
- Earn a share of ArDrive’s profit sharing token (#ↁ) by participating in the DUST usage mining programme. Find out how to participate today here.
- Learn more about the ArDrive PST, ↁ, here.
- ArDrive Founder Phil Mataras delivered a Founder Talk at ArConf#1 — watch the video here.
- Follow Ardrive on Twitter here, join the team on Discord here.
ArGo: Deploy to the permaweb in just one click
- ArGo Founder Prashant Maurya delivered a Founder Talk at ArConf#1 — watch the video here.
- The team recently closed their seed fundraising round for $1.3mil. Congratulations to the team!
- ArGo was recently featured in Bitcoinist — read the article here.
- The team is working on further decentralisation of their deployed nodes, plus the ArGo version 2.0 design has been completed.
- Launch of a regular ask-me-anything (AMA) series, held on Tuesdays — follow Argo on Twitter to stay up-to-date.
- Check out this recent video about ArGo.
- Join ArGo on Discord here.
Evermore: A powerful permaweb-based file storage tool
- Release of an Arweave<>ETH NFT bridge here.
- The first ever NFT minted with Evermore, hosted on OpenSea, was quickly sold after its introduction.
- Release of a free NFT 3D print design for an Evermore drinks coaster, available to all.
- Follow Evermore on Twitter here, and join the Discord here.
ArweaveNews: A community-run news service for the Arweave ecosystem
- The ArweaveNews team is kindly offering to help showcase the work of Arweave ecosystem founders for free — if this applies to you, reach out to the ArweaveNews team now.
- Work has begun on an exciting new protocol… Stay tuned to ArweaveNews on Twitter to hear more soon.
The Koi Protocol: A new framework for decentralized permaweb services
- The Koi NFT portal is now live! Users can upload NFTs to Koi.rocks and earn KOI tokens whenever they are viewed.
- Owners of NFTs from Kevin Abosch’s 1111 collection have a special surprise waiting for them on Koi.rocks. Follow Koi on Twitter to hear more.
- Founder Al Morris will be speaking at the OpenWeb Summit on May 14th, discussing all things NFTs — you can register for the free event here.
- The team will also be joining Coinlist Seed Day on May the 4th — register here.
- The team is now experimenting with uploads by proxy — stay tuned to the Koi blog, on Twitter, and on Discord to learn more soon.
Pianity: Connecting artists, fans, and buyers by building permanent music NFTs
- The first limited edition Pianity NFT was minted on Arweave this month — Rêverie.
- Released five new NFT drops for May Day!
- Pianity now accepts both crypto and credit card payments.
- Follow Pianity on Twitter here.
decent.land: A permaweb-based social network protocol
- Featured in HackerNoon’s article, ‘A Distributed Serverless Blockchain-Based Cache System’.
- Released DIPD, a brand new, fully-decentralised, Arweave-based approach to how DAOs can vote on improvement proposals.
- Launched Friendzone, a new way to monetise users’ posts, plus added follow/unfollow and block/unblock features.
- Work on decent.land V2.1 has begun, including the migration to SmartWeave contracts so the DTL token is used to interact with the protocol directly.
- Follow decent.land on Twitter here.
everFinance: A layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum with virtually gasless transactions using Arweave
- Release of goar v1.0.0 — a very useful backend file upload/download client utilising the permaweb for storage.
- An article by everFinance Founder outprog on the ‘Evolution of the Blockchain Application Model Along with Changing Consensus’.
- Follow everFinance on Twitter here.
Ecclesia: A social media platform focused on free speech
- Ecclesia Founder Brennan Lamey delivered a Founder Talk at ArConf#1 — watch the video here. Brennan also delivered a presentation for the Demo Day session, showcasing the Ecclesia platform itself — watch that video here.
- Following completion of the protocol design, the team is now expanding, and working on its first fundraising round.
- Follow Ecclesia on Twitter here.
New on the Permaweb
Via.org: Making permanent data management simple
- Via is an object document mapper facilitating permanent document storage with Arweave, allowing devs to interact with Arweave as you would with a traditional NoSQL database.
- Via presented in the ArConf#1 Demo Day session. Check out the video here.
- Join the Via beta list here.
- Follow Via on Twitter here, and join the Via Discord here.
Ruddlys: A web 3.0 fine art auctioneer platform solving digital art scarcity
- Ruddlys aims to harness the power of Arweave and NFT technology to create a virtual gallery space that you can visit to enjoy unique artworks found nowhere else.
- Ruddlys presented in the ArConf#1 Demo Day session. Check out the video here.
- Follow Ruddlys on Twitter here.
0pen School: Revolutionising education through gamified incentive-based learning mechanisms
- 0pen School is an educational platform utilising token-based incentives and a ‘proof of knowing’ mechanism to empower students, teachers, and educators in industry, producing better outcomes for all.
- 0pen School presented in the ArConf#1 Demo Day session. Check out the video here.
- Follow 0pen School on Twitter here, and join them on Discord here.
Darkblock: Guaranteeing exclusive access to digital art with encryption & Arweave
Non-Fungible Tokens & Arweave
As many of you will be aware, Arweave is rapidly becoming a leading solution for NFT minting, plus NFT asset and metadata storage. To learn more, check out this previous Guardian article and read about atomic NFTs.
This month saw more NFT activity in the Arweave ecosystem:
- Mintbase began adding Arweave logos to NFTs minted on their platform. Learn why in this CoinDesk article by Brady Dale.
- Stunning generative NFT artwork project Solvency was recently launched, as a collaboration between Steve Klebanoff and Ezra Miller. All Solvency metadata and assets are stored on Arweave. Learn more from Steve here, and read Ezra’s essay here.
- The new PlottedPunks project generates a PlottedPunks NFT for each original CryptoPunk sold. Embedded NFC chips within the physical pieces are cryptographically linked back to your NFT and stored on the permaweb! Read more here.
- dCanvas, a collaborative pixel art board utilising NFTs also now utilises Arweave.
The Arweave Network & Protocol Updates
Arkb: A robust, cost-effective, & easy-to-use deployment tool for Arweave
- Release of arkb v1.1.0, on top of a new profit sharing community called Textury. New features include:
- Truly unlimited deployment — no limits on file size or number.
- Deploy to Arweave & IPFS simultaneously, including entire folders.
- Significant improvements to indexing mechanisms.
- You can choose to only deploy content from a folder that has never been deployed before, further reducing devs’ costs.
Amplify: A faster, more powerful gateway implementation for Arweave
- View the status of the Amplify node cluster here.
- Launch of Amplify v0.8.2, including:
- Radical performance improvements for tag-based queries, with multi-tier indices for both 64-character and 128-character queries.
- More detailed logging for index creation.
- Addition of Koi logging tools and endpoints.
- Updates to the migration script.
In the wild:
Events
Dystopia Labs’ Open Web Community Summit | May 16th-June 6th 2021
- Arweave Founder Sam Williams will be appearing to discuss NFTs, the permaweb, and more with digital artist Kevin Abosch, SuperRare’s Head of Community Louis Giraux, crypto artist Mr. Misang, and others.
- Get your free ticket here.
Articles
Who Are the Fastest Growing Developer Communities in Crypto? | Decrypt — https://decrypt.co/66740/who-are-the-fastest-growing-developer-communities-in-crypto
There’s Certified Fair Trade Coffee, So How About Certified and Persistent NFTs? | CoinDesk — https://www.coindesk.com/certified-persistent-nfts
Podcasts
Sam Williams’ appearance Non Fungible Podcast (NFP) with DKleine — https://twitter.com/_DKleine/status/1385022891868114944
Pay Once and Store Data Forever on Arweave with Sam Williams | The Delphi Podcast with Tom Shaunessey and Can Gurel — https://twitter.com/PodcastDelphi/status/1382049182874238983
The Secrets of Token Design: Proof of Access and Profit Sharing Mechanisms with Sam Williams | Outlier Ventures podcast — https://twitter.com/OVioHQ/status/1387789501880274947
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Be sure to follow us on Twitter to keep up-to-date with the latest Arweave ecosystem news as it happens. If you’re a developer join us on Discord here, and if you’re a miner join us on the new mining Discord here!
You can also join the buzzing unofficial, community-managed Arweavers Telegram group for discussion about anything Arweave-related here.
See you on the permaweb!
-arweave-team
