Arweave vs. Filecoin: Permanent Storage for RWA Documents

One-time, upfront payment for 200+ years of storage. Arweave's endowment model prepays for perpetual storage via a trust fund, guaranteeing data persistence. This matters for RWA legal documents, patents, and regulatory filings where data must be immutable and accessible for decades without ongoing management.

Sub-2-second data retrieval times via the Arweave network. Data is stored on-chain in a blockweave, making access predictable and fast. This matters for on-chain RWA registries, DeFi loan agreements, and title deeds where applications need to fetch documents instantly to execute transactions.

Market-driven, competitive storage prices (~$0.0001/GB/month). Filecoin's decentralized storage network (DSN) creates a verifiable commodity market, driving down costs for large volumes. This matters for mass digitization of property records, large-scale IoT sensor data, or bulk archival of historical documents.

Customizable deal terms (duration, replication, repair). Clients negotiate directly with storage providers for specific redundancy and duration needs (e.g., 1-year vs. 10-year deals). This matters for temporary escrow documents, time-bound compliance data, or projects requiring specific geolocation or provider reputation.

Larger initial capital outlay compared to pay-as-you-go models. While cost-effective over very long horizons, the one-time fee can be prohibitive for short-term or experimental RWA projects with uncertain longevity.

Requires active deal renewal and monitoring. Data must be re-secured upon contract expiry, adding operational overhead. Retrieval can be slower (seconds to minutes) as it depends on provider responsiveness. This matters for set-and-forget permanent records or latency-sensitive dApp integrations.

One-time, upfront payment for 200+ years of storage via the endowment model. This creates a cryptographically guaranteed data permanence promise, crucial for long-term legal enforceability of RWA contracts and deeds. No renewal fees or risk of data lapse.

High upfront capital cost for large datasets. Storing 1TB of high-resolution property scans or loan portfolios requires a significant lump-sum payment in AR. Less suited for dynamic RWA data that changes frequently, as updating files means paying again for a new permanent copy.

Pay-as-you-go, market-driven storage fees. Leverages a decentralized storage market where providers compete on price. Ideal for large-scale, cold storage archives of RWA documents where cost efficiency is paramount. Supports Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM) for automated, programmable storage deals.

Storage deals expire (typically 1-1.5 years), requiring active renewal and ongoing payments. Introduces administrative overhead and lapse risk if not managed. Data availability depends on the continued participation and reliability of individual storage providers, unlike Arweave's pooled endowment.

True permanence via endowment model: One upfront payment secures data for a minimum of 200 years. This is critical for long-term legal documents like property deeds, bond indentures, and patent filings where indefinite, tamper-proof archival is non-negotiable.

No recurring fees: Pay once, store forever. This eliminates the operational overhead and financial risk of managing subscription renewals for thousands of legal documents, providing perfect cost predictability for asset issuers and custodians.

Competitive, market-driven pricing: A decentralized storage market creates price competition among storage providers. For large, active datasets like loan portfolios or trade finance documents requiring frequent updates, this can lead to significant savings versus traditional cloud storage.

Fast, verifiable retrieval and on-chain computation: Integrates with IPFS for fast content addressing and supports FVM smart contracts for programmatic logic. Essential for RWAs that require auditable data feeds, automated compliance checks, or tokenized asset proofs.