This UK team's deeply developed project has tapped into the popular AI narrative, with technology significantly surpassing SUI's Walrus, a rare gem project, let's take a look.
Korea's Story raised 140 million, yielding a market value of 4 billion, Sui's Prince Walrus focuses on data storage, currently at a market value of 2.8 billion, while the technology of UK's Irys has a significant advantage over the previous two; everyone estimate, will Irys’s airdrop (market value) exceed 3 billion?
🌈 Project Background
@irys_xyz was established in the UK in 2021, designed specifically for AI, high-performance data storage chain, L1 layer network, the team is purely Western, aiming to solve the issues of AI data programmability + decentralized storage.
Irys originated from Bundlr (the core extension tool on Arweave), developed by the same team, directly accounting for 98% of Arweave's active usage, demonstrating strong technical capabilities.
Irys moves the traditional cloud computing 'storage + execution' AWS model completely onto the chain, becoming the data infrastructure of Web3.
🚀 Financing Situation
Two rounds of financing totaling $8.7 million, led by top US venture capital firms Framework Ventures and Lemniscap.
Angel investors include: a16z General Partner, Credibly Neutral Co-Founder, Co-Founder of ecodao, etc.
🔹 Little Bear believes that both Framework and a16z have invested in this project.
🚴 Core Team
Founder and CEO, Josh Benaron, former consultant at UK consulting firm VantagePoint.
🔸 The key guy, he dropped out of the computer science program at the University of Surrey in the UK to start a business, reminding me of Ethereum founder Vitalik and Polymarket founder Shayne Coplan, their rebellious daring.
Market Relations Manager, Connor King, previously part of management at two well-known venture capital firms: former portfolio manager at Social Capital, former business development director at Arca.
🔸 This guy invested in Shogun as an individual, has a strong connection.
🏄♂️ Airdrop Interaction Tutorial
🟡 Testnet Leading Water
You can claim 0.1 IRYS daily, it's simple, just input your EVM address to claim.
https://irys.xyz/faucet
🟣 Participate in Three Games
They are Snake, Frog Crossing River, and Tetris; each entry into the game consumes test water, with 2 more games to come, the highest difficulty being Invaders and Minesweeper not yet available.
https://irysarcade.xyz/
The official rewards for winning the game are points and more test water, and the leaderboard is not competitive; the first place only has 61 points, so everyone can feel free to participate.
🟠 Storage Space
This is Irys's version of Google Drive, file encryption and storage, first 10GB free.
https://x.com/trylofty
I'm not sure if payment will grant early user weight; everyone should decide for themselves.
🟢 Galaxy Mission
Last April, Irys released the Galaxy Mission, rewarding completion with exclusive Discord roles; congratulations to those who participated before, it was not competitive then, and there may be considerable weight. However, the official hasn't released new missions, so we will keep an eye out.
✅ Summary
🔹 Who is the real IP chain? Irys natively stores complete assets and supports on-chain execution, while Story only stores metadata and has logic external, making data unable to be directly monetized.
🔹 Who has more future potential? Irys is a complete L1 blockchain, natively integrating storage and execution, while Walrus is just an application deployed on its chain, with security and scalability far inferior.
🔹 Finally, for attentive friends, you'll notice that there is a hidden big boss in Irys's venture capital list, but this Easter egg won't be revealed.
Irys, this Western project, has top-notch technology and should not be overlooked; feel free to interact!
It's worth a try!