jakiro
Author: Charlotte, Kevin; Metrics Ventures
1 Storing start, AO helps help Arweave revive the fanfare
The main network of Arweave was launched on November 18, 2018. It has experienced 13 main upgrades in more than ten years. The business direction is permanent decentralized storage service.But when we observe the changes in network data, I found that the above upgrade did not really let Arweave form a moat. Observing Arweave’s business data can be known:
After entering 2023, Arweave’s storage business increased significantly, and the increase in storage data declined sharply. The monthly network storage volume was hovering between 2-4TIB. The lowest network storage was in June, only 1.43tib.The total annual reserves total 32.96tib. In contrast, the total amount of Filecoin network stored in 2023 exceeded 1.8 EIB (1eib = 1,048,576 TIB). It can be seen that in decentralized storage, Arweave cannot shake Filecoin’s dominant position. The business expansion is very difficultEssence
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Not only is it difficult to break through in the horizontal competition of similar businesses, but Arweave is located -decentralized storage, which is a certain distance from ordinary retail investors. Ordinary users are not too powerful to use, and they cannot quickly perceive the changes in fundamentals.In the new bull market, decentralized storage has been multiplied to the AI/DEPIN narrative Dongfeng, but it is just new bottle of old wine, and has not received much attention from the market.
Such a dilemma is also reflected in the price of the currency. Taking the one-year period as the analysis cycle, before February 2024, the price of AR has been hovering at about 6-10 knives, and the BTC is greatly loser.The startup rose until the founder SAM announced on February 14 that Arweave officially launched AO.
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Arweave can only be regarded as a hard disk as a storage protocol, and only a hard disk cannot carry greater narrative and use scenarios. In the past long time, Arweave hopes to use other protocols to use its own hard disk.But the effect is very small, too far away from the infrastructure of ordinary users, and lacks market attention.As a result, Arweave created a perfectly compatible CPU -AO, which also increased its currency price from $ 8 to nearly $ 50.This article will mainly introduce AO technology principles and related ecology.
1.1 AO Technical Principles: How to achieve verified unlimited calculations?
AO is an Actor Oriented computer running on Arweave. It is designed as an environment that can be reserved in parallel process.
The core feature of AO can be summarized into two:
(1) The process of arbitrarily running in parallel, that is, the infinite expansion of computing power;
(2) Calculating the verification and reclaiming of the results, thereby achieving minimal trust.
Before introducing AO how to achieve the above functions, first understand the basic composition of AO.The AO system contains two types of basic units: proces (processe) and message (MESSAGE), and three types of basic units (can also be regarded as three important roles): scheduling unit (SU), computing unit (CU), and messenger units(MU).
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Process: Computing unit in the network.The status of the process can be calculated by calculating units, and the process can accept information from users and other processes.In specific definition, $P_i$ Represents $i ^{th}$ Process.Define $ p_i $ = ($Log_i, init_i, ENV_I$), Of which $ Log_i $ is an orderly sequence of all messages of $ Pi $, $ init_i $ is the initialization data of $ P_i $, $ SCHED_I $ is a scheduler of $ P_i $, $ ENV_I $ is the calculation of $ P_i $ $ $ $In the environment, at a given time step, the status of $ p_i $ is $ s (p_i) = f (log_i, env_i) $, where F is a function, defined by $ ENV_i $, calculating the status according to the message log.
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News: Each interaction between processes in AO is expressed as a message. The essence of the message is the data item that conforms to the ANS-104 standard. The unity of the message format is critical.Settlement processing is performed on the data layer.
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Scheduling unit: The scheduling unit is responsible for distributing the incremental time of the atoms (similar to the Ethereum NONCE) to the information sent to the process, that is, sorting the process message.After the distribution, the scheduler needs to ensure that the data is uploaded to Arweave, so as to permanently visit others.
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Calculation unit: The calculation unit is the node responsible for calculating the process status in AO. The calculation unit forms a calculation market similar to the decentralized calculation protocol (AKASH).Later, the calculation unit needs to return the calculation results and the status proof of the signature.If the user does not trust the single computing unit, it can further initiate a request to more computing units.The calculation unit needs to be pledged a certain pledge. If a state of error is provided, the pledge will face a penalty.
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Credit unit: The messenger unit is responsible for receiving the transmission message from the client, the route route to the specified scheduling unit, and then retrieved the results from the calculation unit.
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AO implements verified unlimited computing power. The technical points mainly include the following aspects:
(1) Store -based consensus paradigm (SCP): AO computer reaches consensus by storing the holographic login of the message log in Arwearve. Arweave is regarded as a continuous and non -variable log record book to store all message logs to ensure interaction interaction.The log is permanently available, which allows any network participants to calculate the status.
（2）仅需要就数据顺序和存储达成共识，不需要就状态达成共识：比特币和以太坊等区块链采用传统共识机制，即让网络参与者就账本状态达成一致，所有节点需要验证并Reaching consensus on the current state, which has caused waste of computing resources, limiting the speed and scalability of the network.AO does not need to reach a consensus on the status. It only needs to reach the order of interactive logs in Arweave and storage., But in principle, everyone can calculate the status through the data stored by Arweave. If the user wants to obtain the state, you can request the calculation unit to complete the calculation and provide proof.
(3) The functional separation of AR and AO: Combined with the above analysis, AR and AO each perform their duties. AO does not solve the verification problem. It is only responsible for completing the calculation of the message, sorting, and status of the message.Sexuality and verifiable issues reached consensus on the order of data, and ensure permanent and immutable decentralized storage.AO is stored according to the interactive logs on Arweave, but it cannot be modified by Arweave consensus.
(4) Parallel computing architecture based on message transmission: The two basic methods for implementing parallel computing are shared memory and message transmission. AO uses the architecture of message transmission. In contrastShare memory.In the shared memory method, when a user accesses and modifys certain data, other users cannot modify it, that is, they need to wait in the process of “locking competition”. Until the user “unlocks” the data, others can access it.Therefore, there is a certain upper limit of scalability in this method.AO only needs to send interactive information during interaction, and there is no waiting for “locking competition” to achieve horizontal expansion, which makes it extension in parallel to any scale.
(5) The modular structure of AO: The modularization of AO is reflected in the separation of CU, SU, and MU. Users can choose the appropriate sorter, message relay, calculated unit, and even system -level virtual machines that can be replaced at will at will, Thereby supporting processes in multiple smart contract systems to introduce AO.CU, SU, and MU can achieve horizontal expansion, ensuring that computing power increases with demand.
Based on the above analysis, the key processes in the AO network include: Interactive information in the AO network passed the SU after verifying the signature through the MU, uploaded to ArWEAVE after SU sorting, and reached consensus and stored in order on Arweave.When the user needs to get the state, the message is passed to the SU through the MU, the SU selects the appropriate CU and delivered the message to the CU. CU is calculated by the data on the data on Arweave, and the output is returned to the user through the MU.
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1.2 Does AO technology have a moat?
To discuss this issue, we compare AO with two similar projects: parallel high -performance public chain (such as parallel EVM, Solana, etc.) and decentralized calculation protocol (AKASH).
Comparison between parallel high -performance public chain and AO:
The main difference is the difference in the basic architecture of parallel computing. Here we can use Ethereum as a benchmark object to better explain the difference between AO.The traditional EVM represented by Ethereum handles transactions in order. At one time, it can only be modified by a transaction at a time. The entire system shows a single linear forward mode.
The parallel public chain generally can be completed in parallel for non -conflict or non -overlapping transactions (conflict transactions: generally refer to multiple transactions to try to access and modify the same data or status at the same time. This conflict usually leads to inconsistencyAllow Solana to handle thousands of smart contracts at the same time. Each transaction describes the status it will read or writes. The system can complete the parallel execution of these unpacking and non -conflict transactions by identifying the non -overlapping transactions.EVM is similar to parallel processing of non -conflict affairs. Taking Monad as an example, its core process includes three: (1) Optimistic execution, that is, optimistic that all transactions are non -conflict, and at the same time, it is carried out in parallel, but it may lead to errors., By tracking the input and output comparison, places where data is inconsistent will be re -executed;Possible conflicts between some transactions to optimize execution; (3) Merge of state, after the transaction is executed in parallel, the state of each transaction update needs to be merged to ensure the state consistency of the entire block.
Despite the improvement of system efficiency, there are obvious expansion bottlenecks in parallel public chain: it can only be parallel to non -conflict affairs. If it involves access and modification of the same state, it still involves the problem of “lock competition”.The difference between the AO and parallel public chain is: (1) the parallel computing structure of the use of messages instead of sharing memory; (2) only to reach consensus on the order of the storage data, and does not need to reach a consensus on the state.This makes AO have stronger parallel scalability. The scheduling unit, messenger unit, and computing unit can be expanded in horizontal infinitely to ensure the infinite expansion of computing power.
Comparison of decentralized computing markets and AO:
The network represented by Akash provides a decentralized computing market for container custody services, but sacrifices the ability to create to trust services, that is, its calculation results cannot be verified and reproducibleability.In contrast, the calculation of AO is verified calculations. Thanks to its holographic state storage mechanism, AO can even maintain the attributes of traditional smart contracts.AO ensures that the interaction log is written into Arweave and has lasting availability. The state can be calculated by any participant. Everyone can reproduce this calculation process and verify the correctness of other calculations.Measures that ensure verification and trust services can be summarized as aspects of the following aspects: (1) The holographic storage of all interactive logs on Arweave, so that the calculation process can be reproduced;The signature statement of the encryption; (3) The calculation unit needs to be pledged, and the penalty will be faced when the calculation result is wrong.
In summary, the structure of AO and AR not only guarantees the infinite expansion of computing power, but also guarantees the verification and minimum trust of the calculation. Compared with the existing similar items, it has certain differences and moats.
1.3 AO ecology is booming
The AO ecology is still in a very early stage, but it is booming.Judging from the overall data of AOLINK, the current number of AO network processing messages has exceeded 116M, and the number of users daily has reached more than 5K during the peak, but it has recently fallen to near 1.5K. Among them, Builders used to AO networks) The number of holders has also exceeded 4100.
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Within three months after the release of the AO test network, the AO network has initially established infrastructure and financial systems, including cross -chain bridges, prophecy machines, wallets, AMM, stablecoin protocols, etc. At the same timeIt is also being established.
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(as of 2024/4/26 AO ecological panorama, source: @everpayhq @Aarweavescp)
The key protocols include:
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AOX: AO Ecology’s first cross -chain bridge. Based on MPC technology, it provides asset cross -chain services for AO networks. It is currently in the BETA stage. It only supports the cross -chain between $ AR between ARWEAVE and AO network.At present, the incentive task is launched, and users can earn $ TAOX test tokens by completing tasks such as cross -chain operations, which may correspond to the future formal tokens.
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0rbit: AO network prediction machine supports any data through an effective URL to AO. The user requests data to the 0rbit by the user. The 0rbit node will obtain the data and transmit it to the user.
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Arconnect, Aowebwallet: AO network of wallet infrastructure.
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ASTRO: AO network’s stabilized currency protocol has been launched in April. At present, it can receive testing token TAR and cast stable currency USDA through TAR.
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Permaswap, Arswap, Bark: DEX in AO network.Permaswap has just launched AO recently, and currently supports exchange between wrapped AR and Aocred; Arswap and BARK are launched earlier. There are more types of assets supporting. In addition to the accidents of Aocred and Wrapped AR, they also support other projects or MEME tokens in the ecology.Essence
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TYPR: Twitter of AO Ecology, social applications, open functions are the same as Twitter, including POST, long essay Story, and Chatroom, but support the four types of assets of tokens with Trunk/Wrapped AR/Aocred/Typr.
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Permaverse: AO network game and Yuan universe distribution platform. The currently released games are Dumdum. Players can get points by touching their own DUMDUM (a green elephant), corresponding to potential airdrop rewards, and also set up for DUMDUMVery simple yuan cosmic environment.
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AO Games: The game and Yuan universe distribution platform just launched this week. The product features mentioned in Twitter include: a game experience similar to Web2, AI that can integrate chains.
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OutCome_GG: AO Ecological Forecasting Market, predictive indicators include AO ecology, games, DEFI, Meme, business and technology, etc. After the project is announced, it will be introduced to an AI independent agent to carry out forecast competitions by dependence on LLM.
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TRUNK, AETHERIS: Memecoin of AO Ecology.
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AOVM: AI ecological AI tools. For end users, artificial intelligence can be used as personal assistants, market data analysis and other tools. For developers, they can be used as smart contract development assistants. The products have not yet been launched.
Generally speaking, the AO ecology is still very early, and the stage of “foundation” has just entered. Most applications are still in the white paper stage. Even only Twitter and website pages have no specific products and technical documents.The application layer is released and inspected.The development of AO ecology will also feed back the storage business of Arweave -the external business is not expanding well, so the CPU built by itself will release the potential of this hard disk.
2 What is the relationship between AO and AI track?
After the launch of AO, ARWEAVE was re -compared with the AI track and the project in parallel EVM tracks. In the previous article, we have introduced the difference between AO and parallel EVM. In this part, it is described as a brief analysis of the position of AO in the AI track.
AO itself uses the ACTOR model for design, and the ACTOR model itself has a close relationship with AI research. The core idea is that each component of the system can be an independent and autonomous agent. When you need interactionThe ACTOR and AI agent in this model are very similar, which also makes the AO ecological custody AI model and the establishment of AI applications a very attractive direction.So specifically, how will AO solve AI?
In a word, AO makes the AI model’s chain more feasible, can achieve verified calculations of the AI model, thereby promoting the AI model integration smart contract, and expanding the use of AI in the Crypto world.
First of all, the model on the model means that the ML model is stored in the smart contract of the blockchain, and the model can be used by calling the intelligent contract, but this requires: (1) store the AI model and data on the chain, that is, in the chain, that is, in theSaved complete models and data required in thousands of nodes, the storage cost is extremely high, and the storage on the chain of the model, especially the large language model, is not economical; (2) the computing resources are limited, and the blockchain is at the same time.With high latency and low throughput, they will limit the high -performance computing of AI models. For the operation of AI models on the chain, all nodes are required to complete the calculation process at the same time. This single -threaded architecture obviously cannot support.
Therefore, the model calculation is mainly performed under the chain, and the result is returned to the chain. A compromise method is to use OPML/ZKML to implement the chain proven by the reasoning result to improve the verifiable calculation of the linked chain.
Compared with the traditional blockchain (such as Ethereum), the technical advantage of AO is: (1) to be able to access Arweave natively, AR provides a storage layer to make large -scale data for low -cost storage; (2)Can achieve verified, infinitely extended parallel computing.This makes AO solve many problems in the model of models in the traditional blockchain.Repeat the model calculation, reduce calculation redundancy, and improve calculation efficiency.In addition, all data in Arweave can be used as an input of AO calculation, which also greatly improves the data that can be used on the chain model, and promotes the agent or AI application on the chain to rely on more reliable data to complete the decision.
The first force of AO ecology in AI will be the combination of AI and finance, and put forward AgentFi.Agentfi refers to the use of AI’s reasoning capabilities to create and adjust the complex strategies similar to fund managers. It is a sensitive business to use AI models to manipulate money. It is especially important to be credible. Compared with introducing Agentfi on other chains,AO ecology took the lead in opening up the verifiable calculation.The first project launched currently launched is Autonomous Finance. The financial Agent that Autonomous Finance wants to implement includes: DCA asset management Agent, index fund Agent, autonomous hedging fund AGENT, chain prediction Agent, high -frequency prediction Agent, high frequencyTrading Agent et al. At present, DCA’s investment in Agent has been launched. Users can set parameters such as the type of investment production, sliding point range, liquidity pool, and fixed investment time. Of course, this has not achieved the use of AI wisdom to formulate investment strategies.At the level of contract automation that does not need to be triggered outside the chain, we also need to track the ability of subsequent products to determine whether it is a serious product or a gimmick.
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3 Analysis of related token economics and chips
On May 30, 2024, AO announced that it is about to complete the issuance of the $ AO token. The tokens will be launched on June 13, Beijing time.In addition, the tokens related to the project are $ AR. Before $ AO, $ AR is still one of the targets of speculation.
The maximum supply of $ AR tokens is 66 million, and 55 million pieces are initially cast. At present, all of them have entered the market. The remaining 11 million are used as mining rewards.The mining reward of each block is about 0.75 $ AR, which will be halved each year. Arweave digs about 660 daily blocks. ThereforeThe throwing of the mine is very small.At present, the supply volume of $ AR is 65,744,796, and the unlocking rate has reached 99.61%, which can be regarded as a full circulation state.
In the token usage scenarios, $ A is a payment medium for users to store data, and incentives for block production and data storage for miners.Arweave has a Storage Endowment mechanism, that is, the storage cost paid by the user will not be fully distributed to the miner. At present, only 16.67%will be distributed to the miners, and the rest will automatically enter the storage insurance fund. Therefore, Arweave network will move the corresponding quantity to the circulation to the funds (Endowment), which is used to pay for data storage costs accumulated over time.It is only paid from the sum of costs to ensure that the miners are always favorable.But since the birth of Arweave, no one has extracted a tokens from the storage insurance fund, which has also made the storage insurance fund be seen as a burning mechanism of $ AR.When AR, $ A can be regarded as entering a contraction state.
From the perspective of currency price trend, after the release of AO, the price of $ AR rose rapidly, rising 4 times in a month.In the recent short market, the price of AR has risen against the trend, which is close to the new high. At present, the bargaining chip dense area is still concentrated at about $ 10. The other chips dense area is mainly around $ 20- $ 40.In the left and right areas, the current price has come to this level again.
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In terms of valuation analysis, there are currently no projects in the same similarity as Arweave and AO. Projects with similar businesses include parallel EVM, high -performance public chain decentralized storage and decentralized computing protocols.Arweave is basically equal to high -performance public chain and Filecoin in terms of market value. Compared with Akash and SEI, it is higher, but in terms of FDV, public chain and storage projects are much higher than Arweave.Therefore, considering that the AO ecology is still in extreme early stage, the main network is not launched, and the current market value of $ AR is not in a significant underestimation, but the state of almost all circulation reduces the dilution of the tokens. It may be in it may be that it may be in it. It may be that it may be in it. It may be that it may be in.The rising resistance will be relatively small in the future.
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It is closely related to the tokens. The AO tokens will be issued in the future. According to official news, $ AO will be released fairly at 100%. There is no pre -mining, pre -sale and priority acquisition. The total amount of tokens is 21m.Half at a time.The important thing is the method of token acquisition: (1) Asset bridges connected to AO (2) Holding $ AR (3) Participating in the construction of the AO ecosystem.At present, the specific token model of AO has not yet been announced. According to the AO’s answer in the X Space, the AO tokens and AR tokens will perform their duties in terms of functions.Function and consensus maintenance, and AO tokens focus on solving communication problems between computing and applications, that is, AO and AR to maintain the computing and storage functions of the network respectively.
After the news of the $ AO tokens is released, the maximum increase of $ AR in the short -term is more than 18%. On the one hand, $ AR is currently in the almost unique target. On the other handRules are related.Receive the asset bridge to AO (currently $ AR is basically the only asset that can cross the chain to the AO network) and holds the two rules of $ AR. In fact, it is digesting this incident on the $ AR.Yes, the $ A -token currently carries the market’s dual valuation of computing and storage. When the release of $ AO is about to be launched, the $ AR needs to re -valuation, or the market value of the $ AR of the $ AR is also required.
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4 signs
Although the market always says “stir -frying new and not stir -fry”, because old narratives often mobilize new market attention, some old projects are bringing new surprises with technological innovation, and compared to the newly issued projects,The tokens of these old projects have basically entered the full circulation stage, and the unlocking plates are smaller, and the bear market fully bottoms out. Then these old projects may bring greater room for improvement. Arweave is an example of this project.The combination of AO and AR has verified unlimited parallel computing capabilities, which provides ARWEAVE with a technical moat and injects new vitality and narrative.
From the perspective of ecological development, AO is still in the test network stage, ecological construction is extremely early, and the real computing power of AO has not been realized and exerted.We expect that some of the projects that can be born in the AO ecology should be able to give full play to projects that can be used in storage, verification, computing, and large -scale parallel computing, such as decentralized social applications (can ensure permanent storage and calls of social data), AI infrastructure and applicationswait.From the perspective of market attention, although AR’s currency price has remained steadily rising some time ago, the discussion among ordinary users is not high, and the AO test network has not become “Da Mao” attracted market attention.Due to its more complex technical details, it is difficult for ordinary users to recognize the difference between AO and high -performance public chain and decentralized protocols, and how AO can cut into the AI track, so it has not fully recognized the growth potential of AO.AO is also in extreme early stages of the development of the agreement, and the subsequent development space is large. HoweverThe project will be greatly reduced to the valuation of $ AO.
