@Walrus 🦭/acc using erasure coding called Red Stuff and it legitimately changed how i understand data storage forever.
always thought reliable storage meant REPLICATION. store file on 3 servers in case one fails. blockchain? every validator stores everything. seemed logical - more copies = more reliability.
Red Stuff said "what if we use MATH instead of copies?" encodes data into fragments where you only need SUBSET to reconstruct original. store across 100 nodes but only need 33 working to rebuild file.
that's 4-5x replication getting same reliability as 100x replication. costs plummet. efficiency skyrockets. nodes can go offline temporarily without breaking network.
tested it - uploaded 1GB file @Walrus 🦭/acc split into fragments using 2D encoding, distributed across nodes. manually took down 60% of nodes (in test environment) and file still reconstructed perfectly from remaining 40%.
MAGIC. actual mathematical magic. information theory making impossible things possible.
$WAL economics work BECAUSE of this. if network needed full replication costs would be unsustainable. erasure coding makes decentralized storage economically viable.
why isn't everyone using this? oh right cause most people don't know it exists and "erasure coding" sounds complicated and crypto has education problem.
but legitimately this is breakthrough technology hiding in plain sight. we've been doing storage wrong with brute force replication when mathematical encoding achieves same result with fraction of resources.
feeling dumb for not understanding this sooner. feeling excited that @Walrus 🦭/acc implemented it well. feeling bullish on future where this becomes standard not exception.
sometimes real innovation isn't flashy. it's elegant math solving hard problems efficiently. Red Stuff is that. #walrus
