A single, well-considered choice in one component of a distributed system can significantly impact its efficiency and behavior. At Storj, a decentralized object storage platform, this principle is demonstrated through the use of Bloom filters for garbage collection. This post is based on my notes and observations as a small-scale contributor and active community member. I found this case study interesting not just for its set of trade-offs, as is typical in system architecture, but also for demonstrating the necessity of intentional design.