How many steps are needed if @irys_xyz wants to replace Arweave?

Of course, this is an evolutionary journey from "ecosystem newcomer" to "data new king," not just a simple technical iteration.

Although Irys has completed over 1 billion transactions on the testnet, with peak TPS reaching 100,000, demonstrating clear advantages in speed and programmability, it still lags behind Arweave, which has been operational for seven years, in terms of "permanence" and historical storage scale.

To bridge the gap and surpass it, I believe four steps are necessary:

Step 1: Complete Mainnet Launch and Data Migration
Irys is scheduled to launch its mainnet in Q4 2025, aiming to maintain high performance (≥100K TPS) consistent with the testnet and fully support multi-chain payments. Additionally, a "one-click migration" SDK will be officially released, requiring developers to migrate from the old irys/sdk to the new irys/upload, achieving full-stack coverage across browsers, Node.js, and WASM.

During migration, the system will also enable a Data ID dual-mapping mechanism, allowing migrated transaction IDs to maintain verifiable references with the original Arweave chain, fundamentally eliminating concerns about data "chain loss."

Step 2: Consensus and Economic Model Validation
Irys adopts a hybrid PoW + PoS incentive mechanism, aiming to achieve stable block production within six months and keep block production costs below 40% of storage revenue. Only when node rewards are stably above an annualized 10% can its long-term economic sustainability be proven.

If this can be achieved, Irys will truly free itself from dependence on Arweave and become an independent value network.

Step 3: Ecosystem Replication and Surpassing
Leverage the "Programmable Datachain" narrative to attract new developers, with at least half of Arweave applications migrating or deploying dual instances. This will lead to the emergence of million-active-user flagship applications in AI and DePIN scenarios.

At that point, Irys's programmable storage will shift from speed advantage to application explosion.

Step 4: Brand and Community Narrative Reversal
After a period of accumulation, Irys can officially initiate rebranding, publicly declaring "Arweave for archives, Irys for active data," fully upgrading to the preferred data cloud infrastructure.

Market-wise, it will downplay its past as a subsidiary of Bundlr, through brand repositioning and large hackathons, encouraging developers to see Irys as the next-generation data cloud infrastructure, not just an extension of Arweave.

In conclusion:
Reaching this stage would be a historic milestone. Congratulations—you will witness history once again.
This is not only a turning point for Irys but also the beginning of a redefinition of decentralized storage narratives.

When the first byte transitions from Arweave’s archival layer into Irys’s programmable world, the definition of permanent storage will be rewritten. This glorious evolutionary journey has only just begun...