Lumera Protocol, an AI-first Layer 1 evolved from Pastel Network, announced new persistent storage modules called Lumera Hub and Cascade. The hub, which will be rolled out after Lumera's mainnet debut, is intended to be the only place for both developers and everyday users to interact with the network, including storing files, performing AI tasks, minting NFTs, staking, and voting in governance.
At its simplest, a hub combines the main features of Lumera into a single, clean interface. This allows you to store data persistently with Cascade, run agent AI jobs with Inference, and validate digital assets with Sense while handling regular blockchain tasks like transactions and minting. The idea is to remove the hassle of jumping between tools and make Lumera's AI and data features as easy to use as modern apps.
Cascade is the headline here. Unlike many distributed storage approaches, we slice uploaded files into many small overlapping parts, encrypt them, and distribute those pieces across Lumera's supernode network. Each supernode holds multiple encrypted fragments. When a node goes offline or loses data, Cascade's self-healing system retrieves the missing parts from other nodes and restores them. Lumela pitches this as a simple promise. This means you pay once and keep it forever, addressing the usual concerns of long-term cost, availability, and resistance to censorship.
“Lumera Hub is designed to give both developers and end users access to the ecosystem, while Cascade represents a new standard for persistent storage,” said Anthony Georgiades, co-founder of Lumera Protocol. “We are building an infrastructure that is simple, resilient, and censorship-resistant. It is designed to last as long as the data itself.”
Fusion of blockchain security and AI native services
Under the hood, Lumera is built as a high-performance blockchain focused on AI-driven Web3 use cases. It combines the Validator-SuperNode architecture with CometBFT consensus and Cosmos SDK for native IBC compatibility. This stack aims to allow Lumera to host decentralized AI services, trustless computation, and secure storage while maintaining interoperability with other chains, which are useful characteristics as datasets and models become increasingly decentralized.
Hub's combination of inference, sense, and cascade illustrates Lumera's bet that tightly coupling storage, computation, and validation will make life easier for builders. Cascade's automatic redundancy and repair is especially attractive for teams working with large datasets and model checkpoints. For regular users, the hub promises a simpler and more consistent way to mint, stake, vote, and experiment with agent AI without having to piece together a bunch of separate tools.
This launch is an early test of Lumera's broader vision to blend blockchain security and cross-chain interoperability with AI-native services to build resilient infrastructure for the next generation of decentralized apps. If Cascade can indeed deliver on its “pay once, keep forever” promise, it could gain traction among creators and projects that require strong permanence with reliable censorship. For now, Lumera Hub provides a single, friendly gateway for people to try out these pieces together and see if the platform delivers on its promise.
