Introducing ze Hyper Parallel Computer. Sammy boy (Sam Williams, CEO and Co-Founder of Arweave) has let off an absolute firecracker.

‍AO allows an unlimited amount of verifiable compute.

Built on top of Arweave and using it as a backbone, AO enables on-chain compute to scale arbitrarily. Yes. Unlimited scalability. Cobie dropped his most recent post on low float high FDV tokens, which has become breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the CT hivemind. The second-order effect? A resurgence in longing altcoins with parity between market cap and fully diluted valuation.

The most important fundamental in crypto is price. Price influences tech. And the tech looks wicked. AO is a major breakthrough for scaling.

Reasons to long? Glad you asked chap. $AR is not yet listed on Coinbase, AO is aggressively hunting the AI market with what it calls AgentFi (Agent Based Finance) better to read the link yourself, AO and AgentFi, aka it is a proxy long for AI, and anyone holding $AR will be eligible for an $AO allocation. Throw an increasing appetite for tokens that are fully circulated, and the case for going long on $AR looks mighty fine laddy. I do venture that the case for longing $AO could be more promising. Conditions should be good in June, and everyone is sick to death of VC coins. Throw in a fair launch token underpinned by booming tech and you have a winning proposition.

Welcome to the bull market. Long tokens that are going up without any nasty unlocks, and you will be just fine. Time to present the thesis. AO’s hyper parallel computer is a genuine breakthrough for the space. If you, my good man, think a decentralized computational environment that allows for any number of processes to be executed in parallel is a good value prop and want to long either $AO at launch or $AR beforehand, Pango is here with a good slab of confirmation bias.

Builders should build things they are familiar with

The beauty underlying AO is that it is only possible because of Arweave’s on-chain data storage. Bet big on people building where they are specialized. The same reason that Keone is the perfect guy to build Monad, as outlined in the Parallelized EVM piece, the Arweave team is perfectly suited to introduce arbitrary horizontal scalability.

Right, first things first. A quick overview of Arweave and its role in AO. Then, onto the AO tech, a quick snoop around the ecosystem, and then ze bulla and ze bearer case for both tokens. Ready lads?

The promised land of infinitely scalable compute?

Time to break it down double time. In short. Yes, Sammy boy has pulled it off. AO is an absolute fucking heater. AO is quite literally a hyper-parallel computer.

AO is a decentralized computing platform with its own operating system, AOS (AO’s Operating System), to boot. It combines a modular architecture, parallelism, and Arweave’s permanent data storage to provide an unlimited compute environment. For all the smooth brains out there it is a ridiculously powerful global computer.

Thanks to its compatibility and message passing protocol, one can plug in an existing EVM into AO’s infra. Yes lads, my cock is already in my hands, ready to go. You are going to hear the word ‘process’ a fair bit in this piece, and it is best understood as a unit of computation. This individual unit maintains its own state and execution while communicating with the rest of the processes. This is the crux of parallel execution. Instead of a single-threaded approach, AO introduces unlimited processes, and supporting this web is Arweave underneath.

Arweave provides the necessary storage space, meaning data availability isn’t even a concern with AO. Each process's state is stored on Arweave alongside state updates, and then Arweave gets used as the in-built data layer because everything can be coordinated via Arweave. Every message between every process can be accessed by every other process. Arweave is unlimited RAM for AO - more on this later.

Forget about a global synchronized state with each dosser waiting his turn to read and write to the network (like Ethereum). AO is actor-oriented, focusing on asynchronous communication. Each process can continue its individual work without communicating with the others. This is horizontal scaling. And it is crack cocaine for scalability and throughput.

AO earns the moniker “super computer” because when you add more computational capacity, you increase the amount of output. Think about that for a second. You can throw all the computational resources you want, all the economic capital in the world, at any EVM, and it still functions on a single thread with every person waiting in line, more accurately, bidding for a chance to get their action included. Mental. Crypto, the frontier of finance, still uses stone age tech. Multi-cores are the lifeblood of networks, and distributing workloads reduces the time required to execute more complex operations and makes the entire modern world sing.

AOS is the AO operating system and uses Lua, ‘‘a widely-used and intuitive programming language.’’ I have to believe Sam on this because I cannot code. But if nerds modding Roblox and Minecraft use it, it must be pretty intuitive. It is the development platform and coordination framework for processes. Message passing is the keystone of everything. Messages are hosted on Arweave and it is through these messages that information is passed on. This process removes the need to access memory of other processes and is how AO gets decentralized compute for free. This will be explained in more depth later. But all we need to know now is that the internet is built on message passing, and AO applies this methodology to blockchains.

Arweave: The backbone

Brevity is the name of the game lads, so engage the brain. Arweave is a storage network built for permanent data storage. Why do you want to store anything forever? We are creatures with small brains. Storing information is our only defense against the stumbling human condition we find ourselves in. Each generation gathers what they can to pass it along to the next. And by some miracle, we have gone from shitting outside and painting on cave walls to living in absolute comfort gambling on pictures of animals online. Funny how that works out.

Information is becoming this century’s largest commodity. Of course, we are interested in storing it. Arweave facilitates all of this. It is an infra project built to offer permanent file storage, and it created the ‘permaweb.’ Everything is indexed and accessible on demand. The important tech takeaway is Blockweave. Instead of each block referencing the prior block, Arweave’s solution weaves the blocks together using a random verifier. All the Data Availability nerds will be singing that it sounds like Celestia, and they are correct. This concept has been around for a while in computer science and the geeks call in Lazy Evaluation. Doing less is more. Reduce the computational burden and increase output. This is how Arweave stores an unholy amount of data disgustingly efficiently.

Arweave charges everyone upfront for using their services, and once you’ve forked over your shekels, they give you 200 years of storage. The clever buggers use the rest as an endowment. (Arweave is like an old-fashioned aristocrat living on interest without touching the principal.)

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If this sounds wishy-washy and you still cannot imagine who is paying to use these services, think about the things you never think about. The river runneth deeper than thoust imagine.

AO: Ze supercomputer

The absolute boffins at Arweave had a eureka moment. They realized that if one has a machine that stores data forever and a deterministic virtual machine, you can create reproducible state as a result of computation. Yes, that’s right boys. Take a deterministic virtual machine, add an input log and an initial state. Store all of this in a decentralized manner and permanently and it spits out free compute.

Bruv, if you understand that, hats off to you. But if you’re struggling, let’s break it down. A deterministic virtual machine provides the same output given the same input. A vending machine is deterministic. It permits no randomness in outcome. You can press the code for Sprite one million times, and it is never going to spit out a Coke. The result is always the same. Input log is just all the inputs, innit. State is state. Everything that has hitherto been agreed upon mate. Just a big old record of valid things.

AO drives giga brain levels of compute because there is no need for coordination (processes operate asynchronously). Everything has been stored and is accessible, allowing any component of the network to arrive without speaking to anyone else. This is the decentralized compute for free. Think of it like RAM (Random Access Memory). A computer leverages RAM to store data that it is using, enabling quick read and write access. The machine does not have to wait to fetch data and thereby operates more efficiently. Imagine if you had unlimited RAM (Arweave). And the picture becomes clear.  

If this is still confusing. Dunna worry laddie, we are going to give it in plain English. You are sat in a room. In that room is a desk and a filing cabinet. On your desk are all the papers you are currently working on. In the cabinet is everything else. And I mean everything else. Whenever you want something from the filing cabinet you have to go over, look for the bloody key, and go through everything to find the file. All the shit on your desk, readily accessible, is the RAM. In AO’s case, building on top of Arweave means the surface area of the desk is infinite, and everything is perfectly organized. Welcome to the future bucko.

If you want to sound clever, you can say that the nodes give the state of computation but do so asynchronously from the consensus about inputs. (I sniped this from Sam in a podcast.) AO is running arbitrary volumes of compute inside smart contract interactions and the nodes responsible for decentralizing the data and giving consensus on the ordering have been disassociated from the sweat and labor of the computational task itself. This is Lazy Evaluation.

AO unlocks arbitrary volumes of computation by allowing it to occur in parallel. Sod the sequential single-threaded EVM. AO has asynchronous smart contracts talking to each other using Arweave as a message bus and an unlimited number of these threads can run concurrently and coordinate.

And here it shall be known that ze supercomputer was birthed.

For all my left curvers. Imagine you want to complete a book of math problems. You have an entire hive of tiny nerds working away. An EVM is like having one kid come to the front, work out the problem, shout out the answer, everyone says good one mate, and then the next kid comes to the front. AO is every single one of the buggers has their own textbook… and they can communicate telepathically.

Getting into le weeds

Under the hood, it's absolute pure thoroughbred nerd shit. AO is not a homogenous network. It is three subnetworks anchored in Arweave’s storage solution working in tandem to unlock unlimited parallel execution. When talking of parallel execution it simply means executing work simultaneously. Why is the internet hyper-scalable? Because it relies on horizontal scaling. This same preference is observable across computer science and the technological spectrum with integrating multiple cores instead of scaling single cores.

How the devil does it work?

When anybody makes a request, it goes to a MU (Messenger Unit). This is the first point of contact. The MU then finds a suitable SU (Scheduler Unit). This little bugger bestows a sequence number and uploads everything relevant to Arweave. It is a guardian angel of sorting and maintaining order and AO leverages these clever things to guarantee conflict-free execution thanks to everything being neat and tidy. Following this, the MU says, “oye oye mate, execute that’’ to the CU (Computer Unit). It calculates the result, and if there is a new message, the process gets run again, with each message bouncing around the machine.

Add more units = you get more power. There you go lads. Blockchain scalability. Completed it. AO specializes in enabling parallel processes and secures these processes via a staking contract. Each subnetwork in the AO system is a marketplace where free market rules, and the heavy hitter is that AO is a system that does not need a fee market.

Fee markets are bidding wars to get your transaction included. This is only relevant in single-threaded systems where the entire world is queuing up to use one computer. The concept simply does not exist in the AO universe. Unironically absolute fucking sick tech.

Listen up mate. Each process is independent, and an unlimited number of processes can run if the network is big enough. Each process is customizable (block time, block size, consensus mechanisms), all at the user’s discretion. Same goes for Virtual Machines, and despite everything being independent, each process can communicate - interoperability, completed it mate. Literal game set and match for scalability. All hail horizontal scaling.

‘‘AO aims to do for compute what the internet protocol did for data transmission.’’ Sammy Boy

AO ecosystem: Who is building?

AO is still only live on testnet, but anybody can spin up their personal server inside this new internet and send messages to each other. Sammy straight-up calls AO’s universal messaging format a ‘Rosetta Stone.’ Alpha, bro. AO is breaking out of the box and enabling people to read data from blockchains or even run traditional Web2 software inside it.

AO is an environment prepped to make developing as easy as possible. AOS uses Lua, strong-arming devs, Sammy trumpet player extraordinaire, into focusing on core computational tasks abstracting away sticky details.

Orbit: unlimited data

Orbit is an oracle network leveraging AOS. It plugs any data from the web into AO. Yes, correct. Orbit pumps data in from the entire web on-chain. Imagine it as the bridge between the internet and AO. Literally only possible because of Arweave’s scalable storage. See the process flow above.

Community Labs

Community Labs has their fingers in several pies, all within AO. They shipped ArConnect, Arweave’s most popular wallet, and unironically, you are still early. Daily active addresses on Arweave have spiked recently to 4,000, it trends upwards, but most days is below 2,000. For reference, Solana has clocked healthily clear of 1 million daily over the last month.

Additionally, Community Labs will launch Astro and Bark. Astro is Arweave’s first stablecoin protocol and will be responsible for minting $USDA. Over collateralized with $AR, it adds a nice wallop of buy pressure for Arweave, and given AO’s formidable technical chops, it makes sense to deploy financial applications on the network. What will these apps benefit from? A stable store of value. It’s a layup.

Bark will be the first AMM (Automated Market Maker) on AO. The genius move is that each pair lives on its process. This is something EVM supporters can only dream of. A user swapping token X and token Y operates distinctly from a user swapping token P and token Q. Activity between the first pair has no bearing on the second pair - supercharged swapping boys.

Existing tokenomics

Parity between MC and FDV makes all the folks happy. Arweave conducted its ICO in 2018, and its current trading price is likely a fair and honest reflection of what the market thinks it is worth. AO dropped. The price spiked 100%. Nice fundamental-driven action. Note that Arweave is backed by the Cabal (a16z), and honestly, when it comes to VCs, it does not get much better than this. All are long-term orientated and will not Hitler the chart when fully vested.

The current big value flow for the AR token is entities paying for storage on Arweave. If AO gets picked up by developers, more payments will fly into the endowment fund, and AO is a bolted-on benefit for existing AR holders. AO will drive greater demand for storage similar to how EigenLayer's leading product is EigenDA.

Introducing $AO: A breath of fresh air

The team is keeping their cards tucked to their chest for $AO, but a full tokenomics breakdown will be available in tandem with the TGE (Token Generation Event) on June 13th at 11:00 Eastern time.

‍Quick Hitter:

- 100% fair launch

- 21 million total supply, 4-year halving

- Minted via bridging to AO, holding $AR, or building

I cannot help but crack up. AO tweeted ‘‘Existing models are broken. A radically new approach’’ and then literally copy-pasted Bitcoin’s tokenomics design. Cobie will be happy with this tokenomics design which is a refreshing and much-needed deviation from the status quo.

Existing $AR holders do not get left out in the cold- kudos to the team for this- in fact, the inverse is true. Demand for $AO exposure will naturally boost demand for $AR since it’s the easiest way to earn $AO. For those interested, there’s a nice little discussion going on here. Until we know how the token will be divvied up, it’s all speculation. Hats off to AO for this approach. Everyone has a chance to make some shekels, price discovery happens out in the open transparently, and it sets a solid precedent for community growth.

I would like to see a decent chunk (the majority) routed towards builders. Financially incentivize devs, and they swarm like flies. The net result is great for everyone. Devs building in a wicked environment drastically increases the probability of a breakthrough consumer app, and then we all ride into the sunset happy. Forever bullish on button clicking.

Fighting words coming from the man himself. Be bullish on purist builders and autists. Sam ticks both boxes.

Ze bull case

First, $AR

Chart looks horny. Fully circulating. Somehow not yet listed on Coinbase. Anyone holding will receive $AO. You get exposure to Arweave’s core storage business model, which demand from AO should supercharge, and direct ownership rights on some percentage of the $AO total supply.

Now, $AO

Absolutely booming tech. Can plug in any virtual machine. Genuine case for building AI agents and LLMs given the capacity to handle extensive data and high computational loads. Potential for unlimited button clicking. And $AO is a 100% fair launch returning to the good old days. Given pent-up frustration with the current token meta, do not underestimate the chance of the value getting dislocated from reality, with investors being overeager to play a fair game.

Ze bear case

First, $AR

It all depends on how generous the distribution is. If $AR holders get a decent chunk of $AO exposure, it’s all gravy, baby. If it is not, people like shiny new things, and a capital rotation from $AR to $AO makes a good deal of sense.

Now, $AO

You have almost got to feel bad for the team. Imagine if AO launched last cycle in the pure manic froth where everyone, and I mean everyone, was all aboard the alternative layer one train. AO would have done absolute fucking numbers. Now the environment is saturated with infra plays like a fat broad in latex pants. There is no room to breathe.

AO has also yet to be battle-tested. Sure, it's great in testnet with a couple of Indians spinning up Oracles, but will network operators be able to keep up with demand growth? There may be data retrieval latency issues if it grows at scale. Everything is all well and good before the degens get their hands on it.

A layer one is only as good as the apps built upon it. Network effects are king in crypto. And if nobody builds anything good, it dies. You can have the best tech in the world. But if you cannot gamble on it. Who cares? The era of scarce blockspace is over. Ya. Caput. Donesky. Please, for the love of Christ, can somebody build some consumer applications to use all of this shit. Hanging around like pedos thirty yards away from the playground. Doing nothing. Doing absolutely nuttin.

Which way western man

Long the animal tickers or take a punt on a genuine infrastructure play that has realized the ambitions of last cycle, delivering a single system image capable of scaling horizontally arbitrarily. Pango understands the merits of AO and has genuinely been shocked by the tech. But Pango will stick to longing vaporware.