Web3 these past two years has been hyped up quite a bit—connecting everything on-chain, data rights confirmation, disrupting the internet ecosystem. It all sounds grand, but what is the reality? It’s like trying to build a skyscraper on a loose sandy beach—no matter how magnificent the exterior, if the foundation is weak, it’s all over.

The most painful issue is data availability. It sounds technical, but it’s actually simple—what you store on the chain, can you use it completely and accurately when needed?

How awkward is the current situation? Transfers are confirmed on-chain, but transaction receipts are not stored because they’re too expensive or too slow, or they get lost. It becomes a bad debt. In-game assets suddenly disappear, DeFi operations lag, and many of these problems point to the same root cause.

**Developers are on the brink of collapse**

Ordinary users watch the coin prices jump, but the real builders are hit with a triple whammy—

**Cost explosion**: Storing directly on the main chain is ridiculously expensive, and in the end, users foot the bill.

**Centralized compromises**: To save money and time, projects move data off-chain, but this reverts to centralized solutions, betraying the original intent.

**Getting stuck**: Heavy tasks like high-definition games or AI models require massive data processing, which simply can’t keep up, causing bottlenecks.

Poor data layer design makes all the prosperity of Web3 an illusion.

**What is Walrus Protocol doing**

Some projects don’t follow the hype but focus on laying a solid foundation. Solutions like Walrus Protocol are working to solve the “last mile” problem of data on-chain—