The Vulnerability

DeFi protocols are designed to be unstoppable. Smart contracts on Ethereum, Solana, and other chains operate autonomously and cannot be shut down by any single entity. But the frontends that users interact with are typically hosted on centralized servers.

This creates a critical weakness: the protocol is decentralized, but the user interface is not.

Uniswap: A Case Study

In July 2021, Uniswap Labs restricted access to 129 tokens on its official frontend due to regulatory pressure. In August 2022, it blocked over 253 wallet addresses from accessing the interface.

The Uniswap smart contracts remained fully operational onchain. Anyone with technical knowledge could still interact with them directly. But for the vast majority of users who depend on the web interface, access was effectively cut off.

This pattern has repeated across DeFi:

• Tornado Cash frontend was taken offline after OFAC sanctions, a clear case for censorship-resistant archives
• DYDX blocked users from certain jurisdictions
• Various DeFi protocols have geo-restricted their frontends

The Permaweb Fix

The fix is architectural: deploy frontends permanently on Arweave. Once a frontend is stored on the permaweb, it cannot be taken down by anyone.

DeFi frontends that have been mirrored to Arweave include:

• Uniswap interface
• SushiSwap interface
• Compound interface
• 1inch aggregator interface

These permaweb deployments have no server, no DNS records to seize, and no hosting provider to pressure. The frontend is served directly from Arweave's decentralized gateway network.

Mirror.xyz

Mirror.xyz, the Web3 publishing platform, stores all posts permanently on Arweave. Every article published on Mirror becomes an Arweave transaction. Posts can be queried and retrieved directly from the blockweave, independent of Mirror's own servers.

This means that even if Mirror as a company ceased to exist, every article ever published on the platform would remain accessible through Arweave gateways.

How It Works Technically

Deploying a frontend to Arweave is straightforward:

1. Build your application (React, Vue, Svelte, static HTML)
2. Upload the build output to Arweave using permaweb-deploy, ArDrive, or the Turbo SDK
3. Access the deployed frontend at arweave.net/<transactionId>
4. Optionally, link an ArNS domain for a human-readable URL

The deployed frontend is a complete, self-contained web application. It serves HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and assets directly from Arweave's gateway network.

The Properties

A frontend deployed on Arweave has specific properties that centralized hosting cannot provide:

• No server to shut down: The frontend runs from Arweave's decentralized network
• No DNS to seize: Content is addressed by transaction ID, not domain name
• No hosting provider to pressure: No single entity controls access
• Immutable: The deployed version cannot be altered after upload
• Versioned: New versions can be deployed as new transactions, with ArNS pointing to the latest

Why This Matters

The promise of DeFi is financial infrastructure that no single entity controls. But if the frontends that 99% of users rely on can be censored, restricted, or taken offline, that promise is incomplete.

Arweave completes the stack. Decentralized smart contracts need decentralized frontends.