Crust Network (CRU) is a decentralized storage network that provides cloud solutions for both the Web 3.0 and Web 2.0 ecosystems. Constructed on Polkadot's Substrate framework, Crust Network strives to enhance the security, privacy, performance, and ownership of data by utilizing blockchain technology. It offers an incentive layer for the IPFS protocol and has the potential to support a decentralized computing layer, thereby striving to build a decentralized cloud ecosystem. The CRU token serves multiple utilities within the Crust ecosystem, including staking to maintain GPoS consensus, collateral for storage providers, covering transaction fees, purchasing storage or other cloud services, and acting as an on-chain governance mechanism.

Crust Network operates through three key layers: MPoW (Meaningful Proof of Work), GPoS (Guaranteed Proof of Stake), and DSM (Decentralized Storage Market). The MPoW layer is a low-trust storage proof layer that periodically generates trustable storage work reports. The GPoS layer is a PoS-derived consensus layer that requires nodes to provide storage proof to get staking quota. The DSM layer enables users to place storage orders on the chain, ensuring their data is stored and distributed on the Crust Network. Crust Network's architecture is designed to eliminate the "Single-Point-of-Failure" dilemma and the risk of downtime by creating multiple replicas distributed over individual nodes in the network.

Crust Network has a wide range of potential use cases. It can provide the technical infrastructure for the Metaverse, mint, store, and exchange NFTs in a fully decentralized manner, and host websites, dApps, video streaming, and more. It can also support Web 3.0 gaming and decentralized social media, offer personal cloud storage for data access from anywhere, and facilitate file sharing and streaming services. Furthermore, Crust Network can be used for serverless DApp/website hosting, general off-chain data storage, accelerated content delivery, and secure cloud storage.

Crust Network's mainnet launched on September 1, 2021, and currently holds a storage capacity of around 1,200 PetaBytes provided by more than 4,000 individual nodes. It has integrated with many blockchains and provides a fully decentralized storage layer for various networks, including Ethereum, BSC, Polygon, Solana, Near, Elrond, and Heco. Several major blockchain projects already utilize Crust Network for their data storage and hosting needs. Crust Network intends to implement its storage services for more networks in the future to provide its storage solutions for every ecosystem.