308Permanent

308Permanent is a conceptual framework and proposed standard for the long-term persistence of digital artifacts across distributed storage networks. Envisioned as an open, interoperable protocol, it aims to enable verifiable permanence, provenance, and retrievability of data across platforms and providers. Proponents describe 308Permanent as a response to digital decay, link rot, and the fragility of centralized archives.

Origin and scope: The term appears in technical discussions and experimental repositories in the mid-2020s, associated with open-source communities exploring permanent web objectives. In some drafts, 308Permanent is described as a collection of interoperable primitives for durable storage, verification, and governance rather than a single product.

Technology: It relies on content-addressable storage and cryptographic hashes to ensure data integrity, with Merkle trees and distributed ledgers used for provenance. Data is replicated across a permissioned or permissionless network, and a governance layer defines retention rules, pinning policies, and recovery procedures.

Implementation status: There is no formal standard as of the mid-2020s; multiple independent projects experiment with components inspired by 308Permanent concepts. Public repositories and libraries sometimes reference 308Permanent‑like APIs or blueprints, but broad interoperability has not been achieved.

Applications and criticism: Potential use cases include long-term digital archives, cultural heritage preservation, and legal evidence retention. Critics point to complexity, uncertain cost, the risk of perpetual obligations, and whether permanent storage can be made truly reliable at scale. Some observers also raise governance and environmental concerns related to ongoing replication and energy use.