There is a common saying in the Web3 storage track: it all sounds like good ideas, but in reality, they are full of pitfalls.

You will see project teams one after another collapse, but upon closer inspection, the main reason is rarely because users are unwilling to pay. Instead, they are often stuck in invisible and intangible areas—building their own consensus requires burning money, cross-chain adaptation delays progress, market education consumes budgets, and customer acquisition becomes ridiculously difficult. These killer costs are never written into white papers, yet they are constantly eroding cash flow every day.

Against this backdrop, Walrus's performance appears somewhat strange.

This project not only generated positive cash flow in the "money-consuming machine" tracks of AI+RWA but also completed $140 million in private funding in a short period, with its valuation directly set at $2 billion. The industry’s common first reaction is: Is the technology particularly strong? Or is capital pushing behind the scenes?

But when you break it down, you’ll find that the truth isn’t in flashy parameters, but in the deeper fundamentals—how it actually controls those invisible, deadly costs.

**The core logic is simple: it doesn’t rely on growing the scale to make money, but on surviving without doing unnecessary things, then amplifying the profits that should be made.**

Most storage projects follow the engineer’s instinct: do everything yourself—build your own underlying consensus, write your own interface protocols, develop your ecosystem, and push the market yourself. This path seems complete, but in reality, it’s just continuously adding hidden costs.