arweave is a data storage network, similar to ipfs and sia, with one key difference: you pay for storage beforehand (with AR tokens) and your files are stored forever. the key insight here is that as storage costs decrease over time the purchasing power of your initial fee will pay to store files for a long time.
here's the whitepaper which provides an overview of the protocol, and the more in depth yellow paper covering protocol and economic details.
key consensus mechanisms (Proof of Access) are baked into the protocol to ensure file are stored permanently and don't go missing like on ipfs.
the main data structure in arweave isn't a blockchain: it's a blockweave!
will update once i learn what that means lol.
arweave, built on top of https, wants to build a layer of permanence to content on the web. they call this the permaweb, and it'll enable a network where content on the web is stored forever and access at anytime from anyplace. the content on arweave is addressed by a hash so it'll look ugly, but you can always point a regular domain name to content on arweave.
smart contracts on the blockweave