The hard drives in the server room are humming loudly. Lao Wang turned off the billing page of a certain cloud service and let out a long sigh— the company's last centralized cloud server has also been shut down.

Last week, this Shanghai-based gaming studio founder made a decision: to migrate the player data, NFT assets, and content updates of their three blockchain games to Walrus, a decentralized storage protocol. As a result, they directly cut 62% of their monthly IT expenses.

"Previously, I thought decentralized storage was just a hype concept. Only when I actually used it did I realize—what we save is real money," Lao Wang shared in developer circles. "It's not just about cost; players truly own their data rights, and active daily users are actually increasing."

This is not an isolated case. While the crypto market is still navigating the bull and bear cycles, more and more pragmatic small and medium-sized enterprises and development teams are quietly switching to decentralized infrastructure. In this wave of migration, the Walrus protocol based on the Sui blockchain is becoming the standard.

**Cost Dilemma: The Heavy Pressure of Web2 Storage**

"Every time I open the cloud bill, I have to prepare myself psychologically," many small and medium developers complain.

The traditional cloud storage market has long been monopolized by leading cloud providers, creating a hidden "cost tax." For data-intensive applications, storage costs usually account for 30% to 40% of total operational expenses. This doesn’t even include subsequent data migration fees and API call costs—these hidden costs.

That’s why more and more teams are starting to consider decentralized storage—the cost pressure is too high, and they need to find an escape.