Talking about Walrus protocol's storage nodes, it's indeed necessary to do some calculations. Based on existing data simulations, a medium-sized node (storing 100TB of effective data) has an annual storage revenue of approximately 5,000-15,000 $WAL. It sounds pretty good, but here’s the problem—annual fixed costs for hardware configuration and bandwidth maintenance could amount to tens of thousands of dollars.

The real business insight lies here: whether the node's staking rewards plus storage income can sustainably cover costs and generate profit depends on a key factor—the growth of network usage.

Where are the risks? If the supply growth of storage capacity exceeds actual data usage demand, the earnings per individual node will be diluted, and no one can monopolize the cake. Therefore, monitoring a crucial indicator—the growth rate ratio between storage demand and supply—is vital. This metric can directly reflect whether the node ecosystem is healthy and what the fundamental demand for WAL truly looks like.

I believe the protocol layer needs to finely tune incentive parameters to prevent a large influx of nodes from causing vicious competition. Especially to protect the reasonable returns of early builders, which is the foundation for the stable operation of the entire network. Once the incentive mechanism collapses, it will be very difficult to repair later on.