On the 24th of August 2022, the Arweave team announced the introduction of the Permaweb Payment Protocol (P3) for easier payment for Permaweb services.
Arweave is a decentralized storage blockchain network that provides low-cost, scalable, and permanent data storage. The project was designed using Moore’s law to reduce data storage costs.
Arweave combines its Blockchain’s Blockweave structure and Proof of Access protocol to develop a cheaper energy-saving platform.
The project was built by William Jones and Sam Williams to collectively store and share data between users across time to future generations.
Permaweb was launched in June 2019 on top of Blockweave. The Permaweb platform offers full data control over a global network, where users host their applications and web pages without the fear of censorship.
Permaweb Payment Protocol (P3) is a specific way of paying for Permaweb services that allow users to pay directly with $AR currency.
The new P3 protocol removes the need for nodes or swapping data to access Arweave’s data. Instead, users can run complicated queries and send TXs without needing a node interface.
P3 also creates a service marketplace allowing users to search between service providers and pay the cheapest provider that meets their infrastructure needs.
Thus, users identify available service providers, assess their services’ prices, and make deposits to the service providers of their choice. The service provider then withdraws from the client deposits, and the client rates the provider based on its reliability.
P3’s decentralized service discovery routes around node downtime and failures, connecting to other nodes that run the p3 protocol and finding replacements where necessary. According to Sam, Arweave aims to be the “new Library of Alexandria.”
