As Russian forces invade Ukraine, raising real fears about its long-term future, a band of digital archivists is furiously working to preserve the news and events of the crisis.
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A Berlin-based blockchain startup called Arweave is attempting to turn the phrase “history is written by the victors” on its head.
As the Russian military continues its assault on Ukraine and panicked citizens leave in droves before it is too late, there is a fear that key artifacts of Ukrainian history and culture could be whitewashed in the aftermath of the conflict. This includes important news articles, documents, videos, social media posts, and all sorts of digital forms of media. Arweave’s is calling its blockchain platform the ‘permaweb’ because it is hoping to provide an indelible receptacle to preserve such content. Think of it as a Noah’s Ark for documents, a perfect preservation for future historians and researchers.
In the last few weeks alone the platform, which claims to have found a way to cheaply and permanently store virtually unlimited amounts…
