Guy Harrison, CEO of alwaysNFT.cloud, discusses how the startup leveraged CockroachDB to develop a Web3 application aimed at ensuring the permanence of digital assets associated with NFTs. Despite the speculative nature of NFTs, they possess significant economic value and hold potential future utility as ownership certificates for various assets. The challenge lies in managing off-chain storage, with IPFS being a partial solution, as it helps maintain data integrity but requires NFT files to be actively "pinned." CockroachDB, with its distributed architecture, provides the scalability, transactional consistency, and real-time analytical capabilities needed to manage the large and dynamic NFT market. For startups, the serverless option of CockroachDB offers an attractive pay-per-use model that minimizes administrative overhead, making it a practical choice for small teams. The integration of CockroachDB with blockchain technology highlights its potential role in the evolving landscape of Web3, offering a robust solution for scalable, structured data storage.