Irys IRYS / Irys

What is Irys?

Irys is a Layer 1 datachain that unifies onchain data storage and smart contract execution into a single network. Traditional smart contract chains handle financial transactions but lack native primitives for working with data at scale. Traditional datachains handle storage but lack integration with smart contracts. Irys serves both. Irys bridges this gap by unifying storage and execution, making data programmable through IrysVM, its native EVM execution layer.

The network offers flexible storage options: users can choose between term storage (temporary, duration-based) or permanent storage (one-time payment for perpetual retention). Both operate at at-cost pricing, made possible by Irys's multi-revenue model that combines storage fees, execution fees, and programmable data transactions. This design allows Irys to remain competitive on price while maintaining economic sustainability.

Irys achieves instant data retrieval and infinite horizontal scaling. As demand grows, the network expands capacity by adding validators who prove continuous maintenance of their assigned data partitions.

Who are the founders?

Irys was founded by Josh Benaron in 2023 and is based in the UK. Benaron dropped out of computer science at 19 to build Bundlr, a layer-2 data solution on Arweave that helped scale the network from 15,000 transactions per day to 15 million per day over three years, ultimately accounting for over 95% of Arweave's data transactions.

During that time, he onboarded over 300 projects and raised $3 million for Bundlr. After spending years onboarding data-centric companies onchain, Benaron founded Irys to progress his mission: to create the best possible user experience for builders looking to work with and scale data on blockchain tech.

Irys raised $10 million in 2024 through an extended seed round, and an additional $10 million in 2025 through a series A raise.

What makes Irys unique?

Irys introduces Programmable Data as its primitive flagship feature. Through the IrysVM, Programmable Data allows smart contracts to read, transform, and execute embedded instructions on stored data natively within the network. This creates new categories of applications that now have the capability of building on top of not only their own data but also the data of other protocols on the network.