Perpetual storage is a concept in smart contract development that refers to storing data that persists indefinitely on the blockchain. In other words, it is a way to ensure that data is permanently stored and accessible, even if the contract that created the data is no longer active. In the context of Ethereum smart contracts, storage refers to the part of the contract's state that can be read from and written to by the contract's functions. However, the storage is not infinite, and the amount of data that can be stored in a contract is limited by the gas limit of the block in which the contract is executed. Perpetual storage solutions aim to provide a way to store data beyond the lifetime of a contract, without relying on the contract's storage space. One approach to perpetual storage is to use external storage services, such as IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) or Swarm, to store the data off-chain while keeping the reference to the data on-chain. Another approach is to use decentralized storage solutions like Arweave, which is designed specifically for the storage and retrieval of persistent data on a decentralized network. By using perpetual storage solutions, smart contracts can store data that is guaranteed to persist even if the contract is no longer active or has been deleted. This can be useful for applications that require long-term storage of data, such as decentralized exchanges, identity verification systems, and supply chain management systems.

Perpetual storage is a feature of the Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM) network that enables users to automatically renew Filecoin storage deals and maintain them active without interruption. This could be achieved by using a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) framework. Perpetual storage represents a unique actor design model only available on the FVM platform.