The archive that keeps up with itself

GM fellow Arweaver!

Every record Arweave keeps is permanent. This week, we look at how those records are becoming easier to find and how the approach can extend to other use cases.

Let's dive in.

Permanent records, easier to find 🔍

A 2024 Pew Research Center analysis found that a quarter of webpages from 2013 to 2023 no longer exist. As Forward Research sums up in The Vanishing Record, "the footnote survives and the evidence behind it evaporates."

Purged datasets, broken links, and lost archives usually share the same root cause in a single custodian holding a single copy.

The stakes rise when the material at risk includes public health guidance and law-enforcement records. Data like this deserves permanent storage that sits beyond the reach of any single custodian. Arweave supports this function exceedingly well.

Permanent storage is the foundation on which everything rests. Findability builds on top of it, and that's where the AO team's recent work comes in.

The catalog lives onchain

Gateways and indexers have long made searching Arweave quick and familiar, and now the AO team has added another option. Using ArLMDB, they published a catalog of Arweave transactions on Arweave itself, and a browser can search it by pulling only the data a search needs.

Apps usually look up what's stored on Arweave through GraphQL, a standard way to search by the tags attached to each upload, like its file type or app name. ArLMDB lets those searches run over a published catalog that anyone can check.

Fresh uploads can join in too. Before the next block, a node can confirm that an upload is signed correctly, that the uploader can cover the fee, and that the data is on the network. Then it can make the upload searchable, with a proof that anyone can verify.

It's early days. In a small test on one node, all three uploads appeared in search before their blocks were confirmed. The full measurements are covered in the AO team’s recent article, Arweave is a realtime database.

Here’s where it gets even more interesting. As the published catalog is itself data stored on Arweave, the same approach can work for other collections, too.

Any dataset, any publisher

The same tools that index Arweave can be pointed at other sources. Hyperzine's Arweave for AO, and everything else shows some examples of where this could lead.

Ethereum apps typically rely on third-party indexers to find their own onchain events. A HyperBEAM node can read the chain directly and produce an index that lives on Arweave, where anyone can query it from a laptop or browser and verify the results. Ethereum remains the source of truth, while the data derived from it gains a permanent home.

AI training data is another natural fit. A dataset stored on Arweave is permanent, and ArLMDB lets a node read it in place, pulling only the rows it needs and checking each chunk against its transaction. Many open datasets still sit in places where they can be lost, censored, or edited. A verifiable copy on Arweave gives them firmer ground.

The pieces are already in place. HyperBEAM nodes run on hardware that individuals already own, and anyone can join. AO handles the computing, Arweave keeps the results permanent, and the stack is open to any dataset.

Keep reading

We want to give a big thanks to Forward Research, the AO team, and Hyperzine for the articles that inspired this week's issue. Together, they trace a throughline from why we need decentralized storage, to how it's becoming easier to search data, to the many other use cases this approach can extend to.

Give them a read here:

• The Vanishing Record
• Arweave is a realtime database
• Arweave for AO, and everything else

ICYMI 👀

Here’s a quick snapshot of what’s been unfolding across Arweave and AO.

• Anyone Protocol’s HyperBEAM dashboard is live
• getty uses Arweave to support Odysee streamers
• Atomic Asset migrator brings artwork to AO mainnet

The Longview Insider update 🔭

Meet Armstrong. This cute little guy represents the smallest unit in AO’s economy, one trillionth of a full $AO token.

Join Armstrong on a visual tour of the permaweb’s shared computation environment, where no single machine runs the whole show.

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

This is not investment advice. No profit guarantees. If in the U.S., ensure compliance with U.S. laws and seek professional advice.