I didn’t write as much in 2023 as originally planned. Work and university commitments took precedence, but I'm determined to carve out more time for writing in the coming year. This post is a reflection of the past year and outlines what I am looking forward to in 2024.

Overall, 2023 was a year of intense learning as I delved into crypto and Arweave.

Discovering Arweave

Amidst the overwhelming noise in this space, navigating through it to find projects and communities dedicated to building tangible solutions for a better web experience proved challenging. Vitalik even addresses these issues in his latest blog post, “Make Ethereum Cypherpunk Again”.

In my quest to find crypto projects I resonate with, I discovered the data storage protocol, Arweave. This protocol tackles a critical issue, the loss or destruction of valuable information throughout human history, by establishing a decentralized, permissionless, long-term storage solution.

Alex. Archive and Arweave Day Berlin

About a year ago, I then discovered the Alex Archive, a platform preserving digital artifacts on Arweave. I found the idea of community-sponsored archiving fascinating prompting me to participate by starting a pool to archive information about OpenAI’s ChatGPT, released just a month prior.

Not long after starting an archival pool, I became involved in managing the community and marketing this archival application part-time while completing my studies. As someone that is passionate about history preservation, I resonated deeply with Arweave’s mission and the Alex Archive, as reflected in this post.

In June 2023, I had the privilege of joining the Arweave team and ecosystem partners in Berlin to celebrate the network's 5th anniversary. During this period, the Alex. Archive achieved a significant milestone, surpassing 5 million artifacts stored on the Arweave protocol, spanning a diverse array of sources and topics. Here is Nick, co-founder of the Alex. Archive, sharing that milestone in his presentation at Arweave Berlin.

Here are some more pictures from that memorable week.

BazAR Early Release

During that week in Berlin, the groundwork was laid for a protocol enabling a trustless exchange of data on Arweave. Later in the summer, the Universal Content Marketplace Protocol (UCM) was launched, unlocking numerous possibilities for value creation within the permaweb.

Together with the Forward Research team we developed the first user interface for the UCM protocol, the BazAR marketplace and released that in August. This early release is testing the grounds for a trustless exchange of data that is fully onchain.

Another exciting aspect of UCM and BazAR is the licensing potential facilitated by the Universal Data License (UDL) released in July 2023. Creators now have the ability to monetize and retain rights to their online content by defining and attaching their own terms to the data. This stands as one of the most promising aspects of the permaweb, aligning closely with the Web3 ethos of fostering a fairer web experience.

Social science research on the Arweave ecosystem

After Arweave Day Berlin, my focus shifted slightly to complete my studies by year-end. Pursuing a master's in Digital Media and Society, I found inspiration in exploring the usage of digital media platforms within the Web3 community. Specifically, I delved into the Arweave ecosystem. This investigation was particularly exciting as it bridged my existing interest in Arweave with an unexplored angle of social science research.

Under the guidance of Professor Andreas Hepp, I used his framework centered on pioneer communities to analyze online communities involved in shaping new media-related technology. This study of Arweave within this framework, although relatively small in scale, revealed valuable insights into the evolution and curation of the community within online environments. Pending a positive review from supervisors, I intend to share further insights from the findings and potentially expand on the research conducted in this study.

Looking ahead to 2024

After submitting my thesis, I transitioned into a full-time role in marketing and communications at Centigro, a newly established software development studio dedicated to building Web3 software, including the Alex Archive and BazAR Marketplace mentioned earlier.

Following the initial releases of these applications in 2023, our primary focus for 2024 remains refining these projects and expanding their adoption. Our vibrant community of early adopters has played a pivotal role in developing these apps. By closely collaborating with this community, our goal is to establish Alex and BazAR as leading applications on the permaweb, emphasizing user experience, data composability, and interoperability. The groundwork for the permaweb infrastructure was laid in 2023; now, it's time to make it universally accessible.

Overall, this past year has been an intense learning journey within an exciting ecosystem of highly talented developers and creators. I want to express my gratitude to everyone in the Arweave ecosystem whom I've had the opportunity to meet and learn from. I can’t wait to see what we have in store for 2024!

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