GM fellow Arweaver!
Arweave recently processed its two millionth block. This week, we're covering what shipped during that milestone and what's next in development. Plus a quick shoutout to the miners keeping it all running.
Let's go.
A milestone that matters for Arweave miners ⛏️
Arweave recently crossed 2 million blocks. Eight years of runtime sit behind that milestone, with every new block adding variety and depth to the blockweave's permanent record.
None of this would be possible without Arweave’s awesome mining community.
Release 2.9.6
Block 2,000,000 was chosen as the soft fork trigger for release 2.9.6, which activated earlier this month. The release was prepared by the Digital History Association, the research group behind ongoing improvements to the core Arweave protocol, in cooperation with the wider Arweave ecosystem.
Release 2.9.6 closes the grace period for format 1 transactions, a structure that was deprecated back in April 2020 and now only accounts for a tiny fraction of base layer activity, ~0.007% to be exact.
Retiring it clears out legacy weight from the transaction management and caching systems that node operators depend on daily.
2.9.7 already in testing
Development hasn't slowed since. The 2.9.7 alpha pre-release is actively being tested, and points to a broader set of improvements for the network. Node configuration is getting a full rewrite, giving operators hierarchical JSON and YAML config files along with the ability to query and update settings on a running node without a restart.
The account tree has also been reworked for faster initialization and block processing, and the metrics endpoint now serves from a cache so it stays responsive regardless of node load.
None of these releases ship without support from the mining community behind it. Several Discord members contributed to this pre-release by identifying bugs, sharing debug logs and node metrics, and offering guidance on performance tuning. As always, the release notes on GitHub offer a clear insight into what’s actively being worked on.
Mining matters
Mining sits at the center of all this progress. Miners are one of several Arweave Archetypes we identified as part of the larger Arweave community, and perhaps one of the more challenging roles in the ecosystem. Running the infrastructure needs more know-how than plugging in an external hard drive, from managing hundreds of terabytes of blockweave data, to keeping pace with an active and detail-oriented community.
That responsibility and dedication is appreciated in the form of block fees, but there’s a deeper philosophical aspect to it too, as individuals who mine on Arweave play a hands-on role in preserving humanity's most important data.
If you'd like the inside view, we recommend checking out this interview from late last year with James Piechota, Arweave's Protocol Team Lead, where he gave some insight into what running mining infrastructure at scale actually involves.
Get the support you need
If you feel up to the challenge and want to try your hand at mining and supporting permanent data, we encourage you to read this 9-step mining guide. After that, feel free to hop into the Arweave Miners Discord to learn from others who are actively supporting the network.
Have fun!
ICYMI 👀
Here’s a quick snapshot of what’s been unfolding across Arweave and AO.
- Arweave is a realtime database
- Running agents as AO processes
- G-funk tribute to Arweave going cacheless
This week's community feature 🎬
Sam Williams posted a nightly news style video starring animated Dumdumz breaking down ArLMDB's realtime update capabilities on Arweave. It's a fun watch that ties directly into recent permaweb updates.
Thanks for reading!
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Follow us on X at @onlyarweave to stay updated on all things Arweave. Want to dive deeper into AO? Check out @aoComputerClub.
The Longview Team
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