Summary: AO is essentially an extension of the Storage-based Consensus Paradigm (SCP), which is actually a special case of sovereign Rollup. The core idea is to decouple computation from data availability/storage, allowing for on-chain data publishing/storage and off-chain computation/validation. With Arweave's high data-carrying capacity, DApp platforms based on the AO and SCP architecture can significantly reduce data publishing and storage costs, making it easier to facilitate support when there is a high throughput demands.

Author: PermaDAO

Translator: Zwi @ Contributor of PermaDAO

Reviewer: Marshal Orange @ Contributor of PermaDAO

Intro

AO is actually an extension of the Storage-based Consensus Paradigm (SCP), which is similar to a sovereign Rollup. The core idea is to decouple computing from DA/storage, and on-chain data publication/storage + off-chain data computation and validation. Since Arweave has extremely high data carrying capacity, the DApp platform based on AO and SCP architecture can greatly save data publishing and storage costs and facilitate support when there is a strong pursuit of throughput.

The prevailing understanding of Arweave focuses on the concept of permanent storage and has long been used as a storage layer by various projects. The most well-known narrative of Arweave was that it became the Library of Alexandria that will never disappear, with the ultimate goal of preserving the spark of human civilization.

Therefore, after the release of Arweave's AO computer, it was quite surprising that Arweave transformed into a parallel supercomputer. It should be pointed out that Arweave can still function as a storage layer. The AO architecture is a superposition of storage rather than a replacement.

AO, like SCP, allows for parallel execution of computing processes, thus enabling efficient computing capabilities. The processes of AO can be interconnected, and their data formats remain consistent. All data will ultimately be stored in the Arweave mainnet in accordance with the ANS-104 Bundle format. All logs of each process are completely stored, and the final process’s HolographicState is retained on Arweave.

The computing power of AO, combined with Arweave's permanent storage capacity, is actually an uncensored, omnipresent global high-concurrency computer. On this platform, DApps of any type, any language, and any public chain can access Arweave smoothly and enjoy decentralized computing services are cheaper but more efficient than Ethereum.

AOS, on the other hand, is slightly different. If AO is understood as computer architecture, then AOS is an an instance of an operating system. In essence, AO is an architectural system. Users need to interact with an operating system similar to AOS to use the corresponding functions. For the convenience of discussion, the term 'AO' is used uniformly below, but users need to be aware of the difference between the two.

TL;DR

Technical Interpretation

Let us first introduce some prerequisite knowledge as a supplement to AO. After the recent Cancun upgrade and EIP-4844 activation, Ethereum’s data storage issues have become increasingly important. For example, blobs specifically used to store Layer2 DA data will not be permanently retained in the Ethereum network. Nodes can delete blob data that exceeds the time window, and the eliminated data will need to find another storage location.

While platforms like EthStorage, based on Ethereum, address the problem of expired blob data expiration and elimination, they are not native solutions of Ethereum and requires some additional design mechanisms. In addition, although EIP-4844 can greatly reduce the cost of data release, it is still very expensive compared to Arweave.

Unlike Ethereum, Arweave, which started with the slogan "Library of Alexandria", natively supports data permanence and has extremely low cost (the approximation of storing 1GB of data is tens of dollars, the same fee as 1 Ethereum transaction), though it is crude in terms of computing functions. In terms of data redundant storage, Arweave associates the block generation probability with the completeness of the node's local data set. If the storage node deletes some data, its probability of successful block generation will be reduced, and the node that retains the most data will possess higher block-producing 'power' and consequently receive more rewards. Through this method, Arweave’s incentive system can ensure that any historical data can be stored redundantly with a high probability.

It can be said that Arweave is well-suited as a decentralized data storage and publishing layer with extremely low storage costs, while AO and SCP form the modular blockchain and DApp architectures based on AR. Although SCP's design pattern is theoretically different from security-focused modular solutions such as Ethereum Rollup, it is highly feasible in terms of implementation simplicity and integration with Web2 platforms. This is because from the beginning, SCP did not intend to confine himself to a narrow implementation path like Rollup; instead, it aimed to integrate the Web2 platform with Web3 facilities in a broader and more open framework.

  Source: Geek Web3, Interpreting SCP: Breaking Out of the Rollup Paradigm of Decentralized Trust Infrastructure

The picture illustrates the principle of everPay using the SCP scheme, where the DA layer utilizes Arweave, represented by the large circle in the diagram; and the execution layer (similar to the sequencer of Ethereum Layer 2) is the Coordinator, represented by the brown circle. After the users submit the transaction to the Coordinator, the Coordinator will perform the operation and submit these DA data to AR in batches.

As for the Detector, it functions somewhat like the challengers/validators in Ethereum Layer 2. They pull the DA data submitted by the Coordinator from Arweave and calculate or verify transaction results. The Detector's client is open-source, allowing anyone to run it. On the other hand, the Watchmen, actually manage the multi-signature nodes of the cross-chain system, and verify and execute the cross-chain requests. Additionally, the Watchmen are responsible for signing governance proposals.

It's worth emphasizing that the SCP architecture, while not as stringent in security requirements as Ethereum Layer 2, offers projects adopting this architecture greater freedom, more customization options, and reduces the adoption costs. It can be considered a distinctive and innovative approach.

In a nutshell, the framework of AO can be divided into 3 parts: distributed architecture, parallel computing function and communication scheduling component. Integrating these three parts forms the complete function of a supercomputer.

Let's break down the various ideas mentioned above. The first is the SSI single system image, which is actually a distributed architecture. For example, the corresponding server systems behind major Web2 applications are basically distributed systems composed of many server nodes. These servers use special messaging and communication protocols to ensure each other's status and the consistency of the new data.

At the client/front-end level, however, users are unaware that the servers behind the frontend are distributed. To users, even a massive cluster of computers appears as a single machine. This concept is a common in computer engineering known as "abstraction” where complex underlying components are unified into one module. The outside world does not need to know the internal structure of this module; it only needs to pass the input information to the module to obtain the output.

The SSI single system image mentioned earlier adopts Arweave's "cheap decentralized storage" feature. It can be said that the narrative foundation of AO/SCP primarily relies on Arweave's storage price advantage compared to other public chains, as well as its advantages in censorship resistance and data transparency compared to traditional Web2 platforms. In the narrative of AO and SCP, AR is used as a massive data bulletin board and log recorder. Data sent from DApp frontends is transmitted to the Arweave and stored by numerous Arweave nodes in a distributed blockchain network.

Compared with mainstream public chains with a higher degree of trust such as Ethereum, Arweave can better support application with high data throughput due to its extremely low storage cost on Arweave. Unlike the traditional Web2 platforms and the consortium chains, Arweave is more conducive to censorship resistance and data transparency thanks to its openness of the network, making DApps attached to AR more trustworthy than Web2 applications.

For example, traditional Alipay can also be Web3-fied. As long as Alipay designs the interface to be compatible with the AO protocol, its transaction data will be automatically uploaded to the Arweave network, becoming a Web3 version of trustless "Alipay". Similarly, DApps based on Ethereum or EVM-based platforms can integrate with the AO interface if they convert their information formats to ANS-104 format for upload to Arweave.

In contrast to traditional cloud services and closed consortium chains, anyone or any DApp project running nodes of third-party public chains like Ethereum or Arweave can request and read data from multiple nodes through P2P connections. As long as one out of N nodes is willing to provide the data, you can obtain what you need. This ultimately depends on the openness of the network.

From these two perspectives, Arweave-based DApp architecture solutions such as AO and SCP are more like a transition between Web2 and Web3. Traditional Web3 platforms such as Ethereum and Bitcoin come at the expense of cost and efficiency while achieving a high degree of censorship resistance and trustlessness, making it difficult to obtain large-scale adoption. Web2 platforms sacrifice data transparency and censorship resistance to achieve high efficiency and low cost, but are not trustless. AO seems to be an intermediate form between the two.

The difference between SSI and distributed architectures such as client-server architecture, three-tier architecture, N-tier architecture and peer-to-peer architecture is transparency. SSI can significantly improve system abstraction and user experience. However, it should be noted that SSI relies on optimistic synchronization control, which requires the system to have high synchronization control capabilities to ensure data consistency and reliability. Once synchronization control fails, data loss may occur, thus affecting the availability of the AO architecture.

Another benefit of SSI is the speed of deployment. SSI can run multiple instances on a single server without excessive reliance on cloud services or containerization technologies like microservices architecture or containerization tools, effectively reducing system complexity and deployment costs.

In AO's practice, the data synchronization and backup of the distributed architecture rely on the Arweave network. Due to Arweave's permanent storage effects, theoretically the data status at any given time is retained, and there is no data loss or damage.

However, it should be noted that SSI will also cause new additional overhead, particularly in network communication and effective data synchronization among distributed nodes. For example, when SSI architecture fails, in extreme cases, as long as there is one normal node, the entire network can continue to operate normally, but in fact this will lead to serious node security crisis and system robustness.

Actor Orient

After briefly introducing the SSI architecture, it's important to delve into the implementation of AO's parallel computing mechanism. Different from the simple "stacking" of centralized servers, AO utilizes the Actor model to achieve decentralized high-concurrency effects, with users basically unaware that this is a distributed system.

The efficient concurrent computing capabilities of AO architecture come from the Actor model. Carl Hewitt defined the theoretical framework of the Actor model in 1973 and used Actor as the primitive of concurrent computing. Interestingly, it was designed to do calculations for AI at the time.

However, in practice, people may be more familiar with models such as OOP. In fact, according to Oracle's research, OOP is an improved version of Actor, but the subsequent development of the two has gradually drifted apart.

The Actor model defines a series of general rules on how system components should act and interact. Each Actor is an independent entity capable of making local decisions and communicating with other Actors. However, it should be noted that the Actor model emphasizes asynchronous, parallel and distributed characteristics.

Especially, asynchronous and parallel suggest that the state of each component is not synchronized, which may lead to conflicts.Therefore, a strong reliance on message transmitting mechanisms is necessary. This is also the reason why MU and SU are emphasized in AO. The execution is not difficult, while the difficult part is arranging and scheduling to unleash the powerful parallel computing power.

Each Actor is an independent execution unit that can handle assigned tasks on its own. Once utilized properly, such as ensuring the atomicity and consistency of messages, it becomes a highly robust and flexible concurrency model.

The consideration here is the special requirement of the cross-multi-node communication in the blockchain. For example, common microservice architecture often uses the node-to-node communication mode, but the RPC-based implementation will lead to the complexity and delay of various data transmission, and AO architecture uses a unified message transmitting mechanism through MU to standardizing message formats to facilitate final Arweave storage.

Compared with the synchronous task execution mode of each node of CSP (Concurrent Semantics), the most typical feature of Actor is asynchronous execution. Therefore, AO avoids using common shared memory mechanisms to ensure independence, enabling more flexible cross-node communication.

Asynchronous and parallelism constitute the core of efficiency of the Actor model in the AO architecture. To ensure this efficiency, MU/SU/CU were introduced and utilized.

In summary, the combination of the Actor model and the Arweave blockchain constructs an efficient asynchronous high-concurrency computing model under effective information transmission.

The Three Components

Under the AO architecture, both SSI and Actor models have put forward higher requirements for information transmission, leading to the emergence of SU, MU, and CU.

Firstly, understanding the processes in AO refers to requesting the corresponding computing resources when initializing tasks, such as virtual machines and memory resources. The flow of any task is essentially achieved through the transmission of processes.

Regardless of whether it's SSI or the Actor Model, the messages flowing between them must comply with the ANS-104 data standard and format, so that any type of DApp can understand each other.

After producing data that meets the requirements, MU will send messages to the online SU. This process will continue until all messages are processed. Subsequently, the SU needs to receive the data and upload it to Arweave to utilize its verification capabilities.

In addition, the MU processing can also set up a payment plan to implement a customized message processing mechanism, such as only sending messages without taking further actions.

Once SUs receive the messages, CU will start to access. CU contains multiple units responsible for computation. It should be noted that CU is also a decentralized computing power market similar to Akash. Each CU cluster will compete with each other to win the competition. The user has the right to perform the computations. CU will respond and submit a result according to the request. The results of these responses are stored on Arweave and can be verified by the original data on Arweave.

It's evident that in this model, AO provides an efficient and competitive computing network. Users do not need to establish a consensus for computation. They only need to ensure that the messages sent conform to the corresponding process. This fundamentally avoids the high costs associated with computation validity, as seen in platforms like Ethereum.

The Integration of SCP and AO

First let’s discuss verifiability. Keep in mind a consensus: the function of AO is to present verifiable data status. The final verifiability issue is guaranteed by the consensus data on Arweave. AO is essentially an SCP application. At this point, both querying and returning states are logged on Arweave. The AO/SCP program will incorporate these two actions to compute Mint and Slash results.

Specifically, based on the SCP paradigm, the rules of Mint and Slash need to be written into the index. Then the node that calls the index data will naturally calculate the results of Slash and Mint (see AO spec for details for the data model).

After discussing the technical architecture of AO, its application will be discussed below. Although native cross-chain protocols like aox, decentralized stablecoin protocols like ASTRO, and AOVM, an EVM-compatible project on Arweave, have emerged after the AO release, they are currently in an experimental stage. It is worth mentioning that applications based on AO are currently in the ascendant, and many AO versions of Twitter and games are already in development and testing phases.

At the same time, within the Arweave ecosystem, some mature SCP projects, such as everPay and Permaswap under everVision, are undergoing corresponding adaptations and transformations to AO. In theory and practice, SCP and AO are closely related.

SCP is rooted in Arweave's storage capabilities. You can imagine a Turing tape machine that never stops. SCP is responsible for uploading data to the blockchain and assumes the tape recording function of the Turing machine. The state machine can be provided by AO. Every state change can be stored on Arweave.

The problem here is the state explosion, which is also a hidden problem that has plagued Ethereum for years. Arweave does not store state, so there is no state explosion problem, and all data produced by the ao process can be permanently saved.

It should be noted that the data in the ao node does not need to be calculated to reach a consensus state. In theory, as long as the relevant data is stored on the Arweave network, every step of the state change must be recorded. Therefore, more accurately, the data on ao can be written to the network without calculation, and calculation is only part of the data change.

Secondly, facing the enduring blockchain trilemma, where no blockchain can simultaneously solve the issues of security, decentralization, and scalability, the combination of SCP and ao can basically end this trilemma.

Based on the AO/SCP architecture, Arweave is no longer a simple storage public chain. The combination of AR and AO forms a decentralized supercomputer with both storage and computing capabilities, where any DApp can be deployed and interact with others.

Currently, ao represents a unique modular architecture, namely horizontal scalable modularity. Not only does it allow for smart contracts like Warp on the Arweave network, but also mechanisms like the EVM-based smart contracts can be plugged into the ao network, as long as data format consistency is maintained.

In other words, SCP builds a full-layer2 on Arweave, enabling integration with any public chain and DApp, while ao is a super version of SCP, allowing any public chain, smart contract, or DApp to become part of AO.

Another Possibility for DeFi

In the existing EVM ecosystem, smart contracts are the core of everything. On-chain behavior is essentially the scheduling and use of smart contracts. Taking the most common DEX transaction as an example, smart contracts will perform corresponding operations in accordance with regulations when specific conditions are triggered, such as adding liquidity, locating the contract address of the token, etc.

However, it's crucial to note that these contracts operate as single-threaded processes, incapable of concurrent calls. All transactions are sequenced by Ethereum to determine whether they are successful or be attacked by MEV.

By leveraging the ao architecture to revamp Uniswap, a parallel and uninterrupted on-chain trading bot can be created. Each process of the ao-based Uniswap can be set with distinct trigger mechanisms without interfering with one another, and can utilize all computational resources available. This can be understood as a Web2-level quantitative on-chain exchange. The largest DEX in the Arweave ecosystem, Permaswap, has already adopted this approach to adapt to the native ao environment.

Each process in ao possesses the capability to issue tokens. Taking Ethereum as an example, the issuance process of each ERC-20 token becomes a Token Process. By setting price ranges, orders can be generated for trading users, completing the token exchange process.

In fact, it is extremely difficult to transfer and trade tokens in Ethereum. Essentially, the balances of different accounts are added and subtracted. Ultimately, each transaction needs to be repeatedly calculated according to the latest needs of Ethereum, resulting in a large amount of redundant data accumulating on the chain.

AO, however, changes the calculation method for token transfers. Transferring tokens between different accounts essentially involves synchronizing different states, relying on the messaging processes of MU. Each process only needs to be sent to the Arweave network for storage, meaning the consensus occurs before the computation. Ultimately, the assets can be transferred through combinational operations without the entire network participating in the computation. Each token on AO operates concurrently, and it's even possible to establish countless sub-ledgers for a single token, each providing independent parallel computing capabilities.

In the current ao design, specific contracts can be automatically activated by paying nodes, and then the process will calculate and execute according to the set frequency. Thanks to Arweave's affordability and ao's speed, the execution frequency can be set very densely.

For users, ao executes a program similar to a computer program rather than abstract smart contracts. For example, after integrating EverID with the everPay network on ao, EverID operates on the ao interface. The type of program behind the ao interface is irrelevant to users. Users can simultaneously operate DApp applications on multiple public chains, similar to the logic of using existing internet terminals. Terminals call different servers in the network to provide users with a simple and unified application interface.

In essence, this is a reform of the existing DeFi, unifying users' operational logic within a single interaction system while preserving the decentralization behind it.

The Globle Supercomputer

In addition to the traditional encryption needs of DeFi, ao actually opens up the ability to feed back traditional Web2, one of which focuses on trusted computing of ML (Machine learning). As mentioned above, Carl Hewitt’s original intention in designing the Actor Model was AI computing, which gave ao and AI a natural combination ability.

In previous attempts to combine AI and crypto, machine learning models struggled to be smoothly deployed on-chain, especially models with large parameters like LLM. However, ao is different. Since users can freely choose and customize the resources deployed by ao and access computational services without restrictions, and computing resources essentially infinitely scalable and cooperative, ML on-chain does not seem impossible.

Compared with decentralized computing markets such as Akash, the advantage of aolies not in the quantity of GPU clusters but in its massive parallel computing capabilities. Akash requires a strong trust mechanism to build its computing power market.

AO, on the other hand, does not sacrifice its permissionless nature. It's important to note that all of this is still achieved through smart contracts, running on-chain, with their states proven and stored on Arweave. Thanks to its super compatibility, users can use the on-chain environment in ways that suit them, such as running LLM models. The data can be stored on the Arweave network, addressing the decentralized needs for AI's large models and computational power.

AO is different from existing decentralized computing platforms and cloud computing vendors. It represents the first decentralized high-concurrency network, akin to cloud providers with smart contract functionality. When Ethereum is facing the computing and storage crises, Arweave has accomplished a marvelous loop where decentralized computing equates to decentralized data.

To put it more simply, supercomputers that was once expensive and distant from the public are now accessible to everyone, and no one can control its start, operation, or end. Once a process begins, it will only cease if the conditions set in the smart contract for termination are met; otherwise, it will run indefinitely.

Conclusion: the Future of Arweave

With the advent of AO, coupled with the capabilities of the SCP paradigm, Arweave has the potential to become a network of permanent storage and unlimited computation. However, it's important to note that the current AO operating nodes are still in a testnet state and rely on pre-defined slash mechanisms to function.

Theoretically optimal does not always translate to feasible in reality. AO aims to become a network of infinitely extendable and real-time scalable computation, where users have complete control. However, the various ecosystems on Arweave are not yet active, especially mainstream DeFi applications, which are still relatively scarce. Arweave not only lags behind Ethereum but even trails behind Filecoin's introduction of the FVM.

Overall, AO+SCP+Arweave does open up another possibility for blockchain, but this possibility still needs to be verified over time.

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