Recently, while helping a friend deploy a Web3 content platform, I truly realized how solid the Walrus storage protocol is. To be honest, I initially thought it was just an ordinary storage tool, but after working with it, I found that’s not the case at all—developer toolchains and AI capabilities are deeply integrated.

My friend's project needs to handle user-uploaded videos and texts, with core pain points being archiving and retrieval. Previously, using other solutions, we either manually tagged content to the point of exhaustion or the search results were a mess. Later, after integrating Walrus with the AI intelligent layer developed in collaboration with Zark Lab, the entire process changed. All files automatically generate enhanced metadata. Searching with natural language for "2026 Industry Summit Interview" can locate the corresponding video within seconds. The coolest part is that even dialectal voice content can be matched accurately—this is a must-have for UGC platforms.

Another surprise was the integration of CI/CD tools. We directly connected Walrus CLI with GitHub Actions, so after code commits, it automatically deployed to the decentralized frontend. No manual configuration of storage was needed at all. When deploying the 2048 game demo, it was done in one go, twice as fast as traditional workflows.

The network performance is also quite stable. Pipe Network is supported by 280,000 PoP nodes. When users in remote areas open the platform, video loading latency is only 50 milliseconds—this performance is even more stable than the CDN we used before. The advantages of Red Stuff encoding are also evident. Last time, a few server nodes went offline, but the stored data was automatically recovered through primary and secondary slices, with no data loss. This reliability prompted us to migrate all static resources over.

From an investment perspective, I personally staked a small amount of related tokens. What attracts me isn’t hype or concept speculation, but the fact that this ecosystem is genuinely solving practical issues like deployment, retrieval, and transmission. Recently, more and more Web3 media and tool dApps are starting to settle in. Coupled with deep integration with the Sui ecosystem, and with ongoing optimization of AI search and toolchains, developer demand will only increase.

There aren’t many projects in Web3 that truly help developers save time and reduce costs. Those who genuinely build ecosystems steadily and hold long-term are truly reassuring.