After three years of working on distributed storage node technology, I have a deep understanding of this industry: most projects set the participation threshold too high. It's either due to hardware requirements being excessive or operational management being so complex that it drives people crazy. It wasn't until I recently got involved with a node ecosystem of a certain distributed storage protocol that I realized operating nodes can actually be easy and convenient, and can also generate decent income.

I've been running nodes on this platform for over half a year. The most intuitive experience is that the deployment threshold is surprisingly low—starting with just 3 nodes, you can run stably using ordinary server hardware. The system uses the Raft protocol to handle metadata synchronization, which means I don't have to worry about the hassle of data replication. Compared to traditional Kafka's ISR mechanism, this solution is much more lightweight. High availability of data is ensured through segment seal mechanisms and multi-replica storage, which is simple but effective.

Regarding earnings, I have to be more straightforward. Node income mainly comes from two parts: storage leasing fees and transaction fee sharing. The platform uses a 66.67% percentile pricing mechanism to determine storage prices, ranking nodes by their staked amount. This mechanism ensures fairness and transparency. My small node can earn over 300 tokens per month. While this number isn't particularly large, it's quite substantial relative to the costs involved.

Technical reliability is what I value most. The core algorithm has been formally verified using TLA+—this is not just talk. Critical properties like single writer characteristics and immutability are mathematically guaranteed. The pitfalls I encountered in other projects—such as cluster splits and data loss—are completely avoided here. Operational costs have been halved, and efficiency has improved significantly.

The ecosystem support is also robust. Backed by $140 million in funding, it has deep integration with the Sui public chain. The node network has expanded to several thousand nodes and is supporting real-world applications like edge AI computing and IoT data pipelines.

The token economic design is also worth mentioning. The system employs a burn mechanism—each storage transaction burns a portion of tokens, with over 120 million tokens already burned. This acts as an invisible support for node operators—higher node activity makes tokens scarcer, which is beneficial for participants in the long run.

Liquidity is also not a concern. The tokens are traded on major exchanges and mainstream platforms, and I haven't encountered any issues when cashing out part of my earnings. Slippage is controlled at around 0.2%, which is quite good.

Objectively speaking, many node projects in the Web3 space are just "pie in the sky." But this project’s node ecosystem is truly grounded—its lightweight deployment significantly lowers the barrier to participation, formal verification ensures operational stability, transparent mechanisms guarantee stable earnings, and participants can enjoy growth dividends as the ecosystem expands. For tech enthusiasts who want to participate in decentralized storage but don't want to invest too much money, this model is very attractive. You can get involved from the underlying infrastructure without huge capital investment and still earn tangible returns—that's the real reason I continue to invest.