Walrus Protocol's original vision is very appealing—leveraging low-threshold staking and community incentives to enable ordinary users to become network nodes using idle computers and hard drives at home. This model quickly achieved physical decentralization of the network and seems to fully embody the decentralization spirit of Web3.

However, every story has its twist.

As storage data surpasses 3PB, request complexity and frequency increase, and ecosystem applications demand more stringent Service Level Agreements (SLAs), a stark reality emerges: node operation must move toward professionalism and capitalization. This is not speculation; the community is already discussing "Node Specialization 2.0." This quietly unfolding evolution is profoundly changing the network's power structure. The question is, will this path ultimately deviate from the original intention of "decentralization"?

**Where does the pressure come from?** First is technical complexity. Walrus is not just a simple file cabinet; it involves high-intensity computations such as zero-knowledge proof generation, state tree maintenance, and cross-chain data verification. These tasks require powerful CPUs/GPUs, large-capacity ECC memory, and ultra-fast NVMe cache drives. Consumer-grade hardware not only runs slowly, has high latency, but is also prone to errors during proof generation, directly undermining the network's credibility.

Second is the issue of economies of scale. Maintaining and expanding a 3PB storage network incurs real costs. Bandwidth, electricity, hardware upgrades, maintenance personnel—all are significant expenses. Small individual miners simply cannot bear such cost structures.

So the question arises: when node operation requires professional teams and sufficient capital, can the early promise of "anyone can participate" still be maintained?