This article brings together basic tools and resources suitable for Arweave beginners. These tools and resources will help you understand the basic building blocks of the Arweave ecosystem.
ArConnect
ArConnect is a browser extension used as Arweave’s wallet management and application login. It allows you to view and transfer assets, manage account balances and view the latest transactions in the wallet. It also allows you to interact with many Arweave applications (or dApps).
Since transaction signing and encryption are done in the background through an extension rather than an app, your key file will not be stolen. This is a more secure solution than uploading the key file, because the transaction takes place locally on the client.
They do not charge fees for AR or PST transmissions within extensions, but charge a small fee when interacting with dApps. When a third-party application uses ArConnect, a small portion of the charge will be given to randomly selected VRT token holders.
You can download the browser extension from their website arconnect.io.
ArDrive
ArDrive is a decentralized, community-owned data storage platform that provides permanent storage. It provides storage of NFTs, personal photos and videos, documents and even web archives. ArDrive provides secure and public multi-file uploads, as well as censorship-resistant file sharing. People use ArDrive to share articles, books, recordings, photos, and codes.
ArDrive offers a “pay-per-life” payment plan instead of subscription based, which means you don’t have to pay often to store and access your data. It also ensures that regardless of the company’s terms and services, such as your account being inactive for a long time, all data will be left to you.
Since ArDrive allows you to store data on a permaweb, your files will be stored anyway, and you can fully access and control them even if ArDrive goes out of business.
ArDrive registration process: https://ardrive.io/start/
Arweave Dev Discord
In order to support permaweb development, it is worth joining the Arweave development community. It has the Arweave team and core developers of the ecosystem. It is a useful server for developers to provide and get help on development issues. There are also channels such as application ideas, SmartWeave help, gateways, and testweave.
Join Discord here: https://discord.gg/BXk8tq7
Arweavers Telegram community
Another tool for participating in the community is Telegram, so you can join the Arweaver Telegram community. This is a low-tech chat community that pays more attention to the price and general application of the Arweave protocol. The community even held a gathering in Lisbon this year.
In addition to speculative chats, you can also ask for information about how to buy AR, how to upload data, the location of miners and similar information.
Join here: http://t.me/arweavers
Arweave network expansion
Arweave Web Extension can be used as a wallet or as a web archiver. Using Arweave Web Extension, you can archive web pages and online pdfs, videos, and any content that may be 404.
It also allows you to manage your AR token wallet directly in your browser, export the wallet history and download it as a CSV file. It has multi-wallet support and you can switch easily. Can send and receive AR tokens and generate new AR wallet keys.
Here is a guide for archiving and using the wallet:
https://docs.arweave.org/info/archiving/archiving-web-pages
https://docs.arweave.org/info/wallets/arweave-web-extension-wallet
arweave-js
The JavaScript library used to interact with Arweave-arweave-js-is the main way to build custom applications on permaweb. Since it supports both client JS and Node server, arweave-js is a treasure trove of JavaScript developers.
The library can easily generate new wallets, AR transfers, signatures and publish data to the network, etc.
The GitHub address of the project: https://github.com/ArweaveTeam/arweave-js
everPay
everPay is a real-time payment protocol between Arweave and Ethereum. Its goal is to provide a credible, decentralized payment application for everyone, and provide an SDK for developers to make it easy to build DEX.
Since the everPay transaction is not packaged, the transaction will be uploaded to the chain within a few minutes. The everPay protocol currently supports Ethereum and Arweave, and will soon support Arweave profit-sharing tokens (PST).
everPay address: https://app.everpay.io/
Finnie
Finnie is a Koii wallet browser extension. You can use it to create NFTs and store them permanently (for example, you can use Finnie to get the evolving atomic Zombies). You can also use it to store your NFT and get KOII from participation.
After downloading the Finnie browser extension, you can make a new wallet or add your existing wallet, and then you can get a small amount of AR and KOII tokens to start.
Finnie address: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/finnie/cjmkndjhnagcfbpiemnkdpomccnjblmj
Verto
Verto is a general exchange for Arweave profit-sharing tokens (PST) and NFT. AR can be exchanged for any of the various PSTs in the ecosystem. These PSTs stand for ArDrive, denefit.land, PermaBot and Verto. Such products as themselves. Verto Space also acts as a gallery for all the NFTs cast by Verto, including the Bark Blocks series by articulate.eth.
Verto address: http://verto.exchange/
ViewBlock
Every blockchain needs a way for the public to monitor transactions, addresses, blocks, and network statistics. ViewBlock is Arweave’s main block explorer. ViewBlock is very convenient to monitor whether the transaction has been dug into the block, or whether the SmartWeave contract interaction has failed. You can also get statistics about the total size of blockweave, the number of daily transactions, node locations, etc.
ViewBlock address: http://viewblock.io/
Wrapped AR
Wrapped AR or wAR is an ERC20 token created by everFinance. Each WAR token is anchored 1:1 with AR token, and they are a way for Arweave token holders to interact with the Ethereum ecosystem.
If you have AR, you can change it to wAR, and you can also change wAR to AR. With this, everFinance has created a way to obtain AR tokens in a decentralized manner.