Last year in mid-year, I started participating in a decentralized storage project, just to try it out casually. As a result, over the past few months, the income earned solely from operating nodes has nearly matched my regular job income.

The idea at the time was very simple—buy some project tokens to stake, and set up a storage node. I didn't expect this wave of AI data demand to explode so quickly. Now, almost every day, AI training companies and Web3 applications are storing data on my hardware.

Many people still think of these kinds of tokens as just hype, but the reality is much more complex. Take the token of this project as an example; its design logic is completely different.

In simple terms, this token essentially carries the property rights within the decentralized storage network. Holding it means you own a real share of the network’s rights. Organizations that need to store data—whether AI companies, on-chain applications, or traditional enterprises—must use this token to pay for services.

I’ve noticed three mechanisms worth paying attention to:

**First is the real consumption model.** Nodes require tokens to maintain, and users need tokens to store data. Once consumed, these tokens are permanently removed from circulation. This deflationary design is very different from projects that rely solely on lock-up and market hype to pump prices. The latter lack intrinsic demand support, while the former is built on actual business traffic.

**Second is the authenticity of the revenue source.** I can directly observe the growth rate of data on my nodes—maintaining a monthly increase of over 30%. This is not virtual mining income; it’s real people using your hard drive space and paying you for it. It’s a bit like becoming a "data landlord."

**Third is the dual-layer income structure.** Staking tokens can generate dividends, and running storage nodes can earn service fees. The two combine. Currently, my annualized income from staking is about 14%, and from node service fees around 18%, totaling over 30% annualized return.

But on the other hand, behind this seemingly simple participation method, there’s a key detail that many people overlook—