Recently spent some time looking into the Walrus project and gained some new insights into the decentralized storage and content distribution track. To be honest, projects in this space often fall into the trap of storytelling, but only those that build solid infrastructure will truly survive.

My evaluation criteria are quite simple, based on these three points:

**Upload and retrieval experience**. Can users smoothly store data and quickly retrieve it when needed? This is the most direct feeling. No matter how advanced the technology is, if the system is laggy or unstable, everything is meaningless.

**Sustainability of the cost structure**. Storage is inherently a heavy-capital business. Whether operational costs can be controlled long-term and whether the fee model is reasonable determine how far the project can go. Burning money for subsidies is ultimately not a solution.

**Presence of real applications in the ecosystem**. This is the most telling indicator. For example, media platforms storing resources, game developers using it for game assets, AI teams using it for datasets, or on-chain applications doing content hosting—these are the hard metrics.

In these three dimensions, where will Walrus's core competitiveness ultimately manifest? I’d love to hear everyone’s thoughts.