AO Airdrop weakness and ecological stagnation: Is Arweave's newly launched 'decentralized computing' narrative failing

Arweave decentralized computing platform AO: a gem that is underestimated by the market?

On February 11, Arweave issued an announcement announcing that its decentralized computing platform AO will complete its first main network token minting and announced its daily token minting plan. However, compared with other airdrop projects during the same period, AO has not caused much trouble on social media. This raises people's questions: Is the "silence" of Arweave and AO a signal of ecological recession, or is the market missing a gem with great potential?

Airdrop expectations are insufficient, market enthusiasm is sluggish

One of the main reasons why AO is overlooked is that its airdrops have not triggered widespread expectations in the market. The total issuance of AO is 21 million, and a halving mechanism similar to Bitcoin is adopted. In the initial allocation, 36% were allocated to AR holders and 64% were used to incentivize cross-chain asset bridging. As of February 12, 3.214 million AOs have been cast.

Based on the 65.65 million issuances of AR (Arweave native token) on February 11, the current AR and AO issuance ratio is 20.78:1. Although LBank and MEXC have launched AO pre-market trading, the prices of the two exchanges are huge, with LBank about $92 and MEXC about $35. LBank's 24-hour trading volume ($1.97 million) is higher than MEXC, so its price may be closer to market expectations. At $92, the market value of AO circulation is approximately $290 million.

Official information shows that on average, each AR holder can get about 0.016 AO. At $92, it is worth about $14.72, exceeding the current value of a single AR. However, considering that AR fell from its May 2024 high of $49.55 to $9.52 on February 11 (down more than 80%), AR holders need the AO price to rise to around $500 to make up for the losses.

As of February 11, the total number of AR coin holding addresses was 211,000, and an average of about 4.44 AOs per address (valued at about US$409, only the calculated value). The top 100 addresses hold about 2.21 million AOs (accounting for about 70%), and the chip concentration is relatively high. Even at $92, the airdrop size is only $290 million, and if the price is $35, it is only $110 million. The continued decline in AR has also suppressed market enthusiasm.

Network activity has increased, but the overall level is still low

Arweave's network activity has always been low. There are 3,366 daily active addresses on February 11, which is higher than the historical level (about 1,000 before 2023 and about 2,000 in 2024), but it is still not high. The daily active users' data in 2025 generally exceeds 3,000, up to 5,000, which may be related to AO airdrop expectations.

The amount of data uploads is a key indicator for measuring network activity. Since the end of 2023, the number of daily data uploads of Arweave has continued to grow, rising from an average of more than 100 GB per day to more than 400 GB per day, but it is still below the 2.02TB peak in 2022.

ArDrive is the most active application in the Arweave network, contributing about 90% of the data upload volume. Another ecological project, Irys, contributed about 10%. Since June 1, 2024, the total number of Arweave addresses has remained at 211,366 for unknown reasons.

AO ecology is still in its early stages

AO Network's current TVL is about $315 million, down from $700 million in the test network phase. The transaction volume of AOX, the main cross-chain bridge of AO network, exceeded US$8 million, and TVL exceeded US$3 million; the settlement amount of ecological project FusionFi exceeded US$10 million.

AO ecological project is still in its early stages, lacking exclusive browsers and official ecological maps, and the official transaction time has not been announced. Its technological innovation and AI potential have not yet been transformed into practical application results. AO's success depends on whether it can transform technological narrative into practical applications, rather than relying solely on token incentives.

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