Data storage has become an essential need that global enterprises and individuals cannot avoid. However, the reality is somewhat stark—traditional cloud storage markets are firmly dominated by tech giants like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, who set prices at will based on their monopolistic positions. Policy changes can double users' storage costs overnight, and data security remains a constant concern.

This is why decentralized storage solutions are attracting so much attention.

Market size says everything. The global cloud storage market has already surpassed $100 billion, with an annual growth rate of over 15%. However, this market is largely divided among the three giants, who control about 60% of the market share. Under this landscape, users are trapped by high costs and face risks such as single points of failure and data sovereignty issues—these pain points are precisely what decentralized storage aims to address.

The core logic of decentralized storage is actually simple: through encrypted sharding and multi-node distributed storage, it ensures data integrity and availability without relying on any centralized entity. Each storage node only holds data fragments, so a single point of failure cannot threaten the overall data security, while operational costs are significantly reduced.

Cost comparison best illustrates the point. In traditional cloud storage, the annual cost to store 1TB of data can be hundreds of dollars, but decentralized storage protocols, through optimized architecture and incentive mechanisms, can reduce costs to just a few dollars. This price difference is enough to reshape the competitive landscape of the entire storage market.

The role of WAL tokens in this ecosystem is worth noting. As the protocol’s native asset, WAL is not only a tool for paying storage fees but also connects participants through an incentive mechanism. Token holders can stake to participate in network governance, voting on protocol upgrades and profit distribution; storage node operators earn WAL rewards by maintaining the network; users can pay storage fees with WAL. This multi-role incentive design creates a self-consistent economic model.

From a market perspective, the prospects for decentralized storage are indeed promising, especially as more companies begin to focus on data sovereignty and cost efficiency. However, this sector is still in its early stages, and aspects such as technological stability, user experience, and large-scale commercial deployment still need validation.