The next step for Web3 infrastructure: from storage to the release of data value

Everyone is saying, "Data is the new oil." But in the real world, most people are just bystanders at the roadside gas station, watching the excitement without ever truly owning a "data oilfield."

Every day, we create content online, provide behavioral data, and even supply training materials for AI, yet very few people benefit from this value. Currently, 95% of the world's AI training data is controlled by five major tech giants, which possess the most complete "data asset pool" and are using these "data walls" to define how the world operates.

In the Web3 world, the construction of data infrastructure is still far from mature. The cost of storing each GB on Ethereum can reach up to $900,000, and Rollup projects can burn millions of dollars in minutes just to temporarily store off-chain data. Meanwhile, many AI companies are still relying on web crawlers to collect low-quality data from public webpages, with data authorization, copyright management, and content incentives almost completely absent.

In short: This is an economy worth $30 trillion a year, yet it lacks its own "operating system."

At the same time, a more fundamental question is being raised:

What kind of data is truly valuable?

Is it the static accumulation of files, or is it data assets that can be read, authorized, invoked, and traded? The answer is becoming increasingly clear. Future competition will no longer be about "how much data I can store," but rather "how I can use data and unlock its value."

The Undervalued Trillion-Dollar Market: Data Usage Rights and Monetization Issues

In today's highly digitalized era, each of us generates a vast amount of data every day: statements on social platforms, creative content, behavioral trajectories of product usage, uploaded images and videos, and even a large amount of public materials inadvertently "fed" to AI models.

A thought-provoking phenomenon is that even though Web3 advocates for "user ownership" and "decentralization," there is almost a complete void in truly usable, controllable, and monetizable data infrastructure. In other words, on-chain assets can be traded, combined, and incentivized, but data remains in a "silo" state, unable to flow effectively or generate revenue.

Several typical issues persist:

• Developers cannot put data on-chain at a reasonable cost, especially large volumes of data, which are prohibitively expensive under the current infrastructure, making daily use or commercialization unfeasible;

• Even if data is successfully put on-chain, it is difficult to efficiently invoke and combine, with high latency and weak interfaces, resulting in high costs for "data usage";

• There is a lack of standardized data authorization and charging mechanisms, preventing content creators or platform providers from establishing a credible "data commodity" trading model, making it impossible to truly "sell" a piece of data;

• The separation of storage and computation means that using data still relies on centralized tools or off-chain logic, resulting in an incomplete data experience in Web3.

These structural issues directly lead to the difficulty in realizing the concept of "data as an asset." We often talk about "empowering data," but once it comes to specific actions like authorization, invocation, and trading, we find that there is no on-chain platform that can truly accommodate these needs.

The emergence of Irys aims to resolve these core contradictions.

It is not simply about providing "cheaper storage," but rather redefining the role of data on-chain from the perspective of programmability, executability, and incentivization. It transforms data from being a passively stored file into a "natively on-chain asset" with rules, value, and behavioral capabilities.

Core Logic: Not Storing Data, but Unlocking Data's Value

In the traditional blockchain context, when discussing "data," people first think of "storage"—writing data to the blockchain or off-chain solutions to ensure its availability and immutability. This is precisely the main focus of protocols like Arweave and Filecoin: emphasizing long-term, stable, and cost-effective data storage.

However, Irys has a completely different perspective. From its inception, it was not designed to be a "cheaper hard drive," but rather to address a core question: how to make data truly become a "behaviorally capable" on-chain asset that participates in circulation, is used, and creates value.

This is also the fundamental distinction between Irys and traditional storage protocols—it's not about storing data, but about unlocking data's value.

1. Lower Costs, Suitable for Large-Scale Application Scenarios

In the Web3 world, "storage" has always been a costly operation. For example, the on-chain storage cost on Ethereum can reach hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars per GB, greatly limiting the development of data-related applications.

Irys significantly reduces storage costs through underlying architecture optimization and resource scheduling mechanisms while ensuring data security and availability. This is highly attractive for scenarios that require processing massive amounts of data, such as AI model training, content platforms, and social protocols.

2. Instant Data Retrieval, Enhancing Developer Experience

Traditional storage protocols often emphasize that "data cannot be lost once on-chain," but when it comes time to retrieve this data, there are often issues with complex calls, high latency, and non-standard interfaces.

Irys's design philosophy resembles that of a database: data is not "archived," but "available." Developers can read and process on-chain data with low latency and high efficiency through familiar methods, which is crucial for applications that require real-time interaction or high-frequency calls.

3. EVM-Compatible Smart Contract Layer, Lowering Development Barriers

Irys is fully compatible with EVM, allowing developers to use Ethereum ecosystem tools like Solidity, Hardhat, and Foundry to directly build contract logic related to data.

This not only lowers the barrier for migrating from Web2 to Web3 but also enables existing Ethereum developers to seamlessly build DApps around "data assets," expanding new application scenarios such as authorized data markets, on-chain AI processing platforms, and content royalty management systems.

4. Multi-Ledger Architecture, More Flexible Data

Unlike a single-chain structure, Irys adopts a multi-ledger architecture, allowing different types of data to set different storage periods and access permissions. For example, some temporary data can be set to automatically destroy after a certain time, sensitive data can have access verification logic configured, and public data can have open query permissions.

This flexible "data lifecycle management capability" allows Irys to meet the complex needs of various fields such as AI, content, social, and finance.

5. Programmable Data + Contract Enforcement, Giving Data True "Vitality"

This is the most differentiated aspect of Irys. On Irys, data is not just a "passively stored" block of information; it can embed rules for pricing, authorization, and usage, and be automatically executed through smart contracts.

In other words, each piece of data carries "contract awareness," allowing it to:

• Only allow authorized users to access

• Charge based on time and frequency

• Automatically track usage behavior

• Automatically settle fees or revenue sharing during transfer or invocation

This form of "programmable data asset" means that data is no longer static content, but a new type of on-chain asset that is truly tradable, incentivizable, and combinable. Irys is no longer positioned as a traditional "decentralized storage protocol," but as an infrastructure platform for the future data economy. It integrates storage, usage, trading, and execution into a complete closed loop for data from generation to circulation to monetization.

For developers, it is a low-barrier, high-efficiency tool platform; for creators, it is a trustworthy and controllable value release channel; and for the entire Web3 ecosystem, it may be the key to unlocking a new paradigm of "data as an asset."

Data Infrastructure is Becoming the New Core Battleground

In the past few years, the attention of the crypto industry has mostly focused on public chain performance, DeFi innovations, NFT applications, and so on. However, with the rapid development of AI, large models, and content creation, "data," the most fundamental yet strategically valuable resource, is once again becoming the "hard currency" in industrial consensus.

Especially in the context of Web3, the role of data is not just information recording, but also the raw material for executing smart contracts, training AI models, identity mapping, and content rights confirmation. Data infrastructure is no longer a marginal player but is moving towards the core of the industry.

We can clearly see this trend from a series of recent events:

• Celestia raised $100 million, focusing on the "Data Availability" track, attempting to solve data transmission and verification issues for modular chains like Rollup;

• Story Protocol raised $140 million, dedicated to building an "IP on-chain protocol," focusing on creating a traceable, authorized, and tradable data structure for creators' content;

• Ethereum's blob space (temporary data storage space) is facing capacity pressure, indicating that mainstream Layer 1 can no longer bear the growing demand for data interaction;

• The number of copyright lawsuits related to AI has surged over 200% since 2023, as creators are rapidly awakening and demanding compensation from platforms for their data being "used for training";

• Several Rollup solutions have encountered scaling bottlenecks due to high temporary data storage costs, indicating that existing data infrastructure capabilities are restricting further expansion of upper-layer applications.

These seemingly independent events point to the same reality: Web3 is entering a new stage where "data is the core asset," with exponential growth in demand for "usable, controllable, and monetizable" on-chain data.

Yet, we still lack a universal, stable, and large-scale calling data infrastructure.

Current solutions either focus on storage but cannot be invoked (like Filecoin, Arweave), or only address specific niche problems (like Story Protocol for IP authorization), with no fully functional foundational chain designed for "general data assets" emerging.

This is why Irys's entry point is so critical. It not only fills the gap of "data storage + invocation + trading" but also provides a combinable, expandable, and scalable solution path for the entire ecosystem through programmable data and smart contract execution mechanisms.

In other words, this is the "data main chain" that the market has been waiting for.

Data is Not Just a "Resource," but Should Be an "Asset"

Storage is the starting point, but not the endpoint. Truly unlocking data value requires a complete set of technologies and architectures centered around "usage rights, incentive mechanisms, and contract control."

What Irys is building is a blockchain foundation that truly transforms "data" into "assets."

From content creators to AI model trainers, from decentralized social to on-chain computing platforms, as long as you are building a Web3 product that relies on data, Irys may become a foundational infrastructure option you must consider.

The future of data is not just about "putting it in," but about "how to create value and then output it." And this process requires a chain born specifically for this purpose.