I've been pondering lately why some storage projects manage to stand out from the crowd.

It's not just about having impressive technical indicators. RedStuff's erasure coding scheme has indeed reduced storage costs to a fraction—just a few tenths—of traditional solutions, which is quite an achievement. But what truly deserves attention is that it has seized a subtle timing window.

AI hype is everywhere, yet data flow remains stuck: either locked in centralized servers, unable to move, or just storing a hash on-chain, with the actual files relying on luck to find their way across a distributed network. Walrus is essentially overturning this model—making data itself a programmable on-chain object. Imagine an AI agent that can directly call, verify, and even trade data without the hassle of permissions or availability concerns.

Last month, a notable signal emerged: a major media library migrated entirely to this platform, and Humanity Protocol put over ten million identity credentials on-chain. This isn't just hype; real people are using technical solutions to solve pain points in production. Especially when a regional cloud service outage occurred, projects on this chain remained unaffected—highlighting that decentralization isn't just a slogan but a foundational insurance that can truly save the day.

Honestly, the recent token price of this project has been somewhat confusing. Since launch, there hasn't been a decent rebound, and the community occasionally complains about the unlocking pressure. This raises a tough question: no matter how advanced the technical framework is, if the token model isn't well-designed, can it survive this incubation period?

Looking from another angle, this is how it was in the early days. Currently, on-chain data storage totals 538TB, with a utilization rate of 12.9%, and 5,500 new data blocks added daily—these numbers indicate that the ecosystem is still climbing. The real watershed isn't how many people are using it now, but in half a year or a year, when AI applications truly explode, who will become the indispensable infrastructure.

Walrus is betting on a bigger gamble: data will become a new productive asset, and verifiable data will form the infrastructure layer of the AI era. If this direction proves correct, then the current volatility is actually a window for strategic deployment.

Think about the logic of Web3: it’s always about making moves before everyone else realizes, then repeatedly tugging between skepticism and persistence. The ultimate winner depends on whether you can hold on until that critical point.