Arweave Launches AO Mainnet

Decentralized storage project Arweave has officially launched the mainnet release of its computing platform, AO, following a year-long testnet phase.

Native tokens previously minted and distributed to AR holders and testnet depositors are set to become transferable following this mainnet launch.

AO Overview

AO, dubbed a “hyperparallel computer” by its developers, introduces a distributed computing environment with parallelized processing capabilities.

Arweave’s permanent data storage underpins AO’s operations, ensuring that data is immutable and permanently accessible.

In a statement, Sam Williams, founder of Arweave, highlighted: “Arweave’s decentralized data layer ensures the long-term availability and integrity of AO’s on-chain computations, enabling efficient scaling of AO’s shared ledger of messages.”

Contribution to Arweave Ecosystem

AO is expected to contribute to the Arweave ecosystem by driving demand for Arweave’s storage services. The core developers believe AO will support a new wave of dapps, particularly on-chain autonomous agents focusing on AI coordination.

AO Tokens to Become Transferable

The launch of AO’s mainnet is accompanied by the final release of its native token, which is separate from Arweave’s AR token. The AO token’s maximum supply cap is 21 million, echoing Bitcoin’s model. This launch adopted a fair distribution model, handing out tokens to users who bridge assets to the platform and existing AR token holders.

• 36% will be distributed to AR holders over time.
• 64% is allocated for economic growth incentives, particularly for bridging assets into AO and rewarding users who deposit assets like DAI and stETH.

Arweave rolled out the public testnet for AO in February 2024, with the mainnet release now allowing users to transfer and trade tokens. Over $700 million in assets were pre-bridged to the AO testnet before this launch to mine AO.

The AO token’s primary function is to secure message passing within the network by incentivizing attestations through a system.