ArDrive Raises $17.2M To Supercharge Arweave Gateway Decentralization
ArDrive is the app that lets you pay once to securely save your files forever on the Arweave permaweb, has raised $17.2M to Supercharge Arweave Gateway Decentralization.
The investment round led by Arweave Team, Blockchain Capital, and Sino Global Capital to build a decentralized alternative to the current gateway model.
Gateways are the portal to the permaweb. Every application that reads data sends transactions and queries Arweave needs one. They ensure that your file data is sufficiently seeded to the underlying mining nodes of the network, cache and serve your data from the moment your transactions reach the network, and provide a searchable index for the transaction tag data that powers some of the permaweb’s most essential dApps.
– Phil Mataras, ArDrive/AR.IO Founder
“An open protocol for providing incentivized access to the Arweave will open opportunities for a new class of PermaWeb service providers that give apps and their users a better quality of service from a decentralized network.”
The Arweave.net gateway evolved as network demands grew, making it unique and difficult to be built upon. The Arweave team recognized this and the need for more gateways, so they formed a gateway-focused team, including Hlöðver Sigurðsson, to work on an open-source, easy-to-deploy container-based gateway called Vartex in March 2021.
Now, 9 months later, Arweave.net and the Vartex project are now being rolled into an incentivized, decentralized network of gateway nodes called AR.IO.
What is AR.IO?
The AR.IO project – lead by the ArDrive team and advised by the key gateway and mining pool developers – is an improved gateway tool with an incentivization layer that aims to democratize, decentralize and enhance gateways.
AR.IO is building both a better gateway and a way to make it profitable for anyone with the right hardware to run one. Having received $17.2 million in funding to help facilitate this project, ArDrive continues to be a central figure in the Arweave community, offering accessibility and technical user ease. With 8.4% of all data on Arweave currently stored via ArDrive, the platform has continued to be embraced by web3 advocates.
– Sam Williams, founder of Arweave
Gateways in Arweave are presently distributed, but not redundantly decentralised. ARIO fixes this in a powerful way — ensuring wider access and more choice for permaweb users.
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