♻️ @Walrus 🦭/acc is a decentralized blob storage network designed to provide high-integrity, available storage for large binary objects (blobs) with low overhead. Developed by The MystenLabs Team, the project integrates a high-performance blockchain as a control plane for metadata and governance while utilizing a separate committee of storage nodes to manage the actual data.
At its technical core, Walrus uses a novel two-dimensional erasure coding protocol called Red Stuff. This allows the system to achieve high security with a low replication factor (4.5x), significantly lower than the 25x overhead often required for similar security levels in fully replicated systems.
♻️ Problems Handled by Walrus
Walrus is designed to solve:
• The Replication/Efficiency Trade-off: Existing systems either rely on full replication, which is prohibitively expensive, or simple erasure coding schemes that struggle with efficient recovery when nodes leave the network (churn).
• High Recovery Costs (Self-Healing): In traditional encoded systems, replacing a failed storage node requires transmitting the entire blob across the network (O(∣blob∣)). Walrus enables self-healing recovery where bandwidth is proportional only to the lost data (O(∣blob∣/n)), making it much more scalable.
• Vulnerability in Asynchronous Networks: Most current decentralized storage assumes a synchronous network to ensure nodes are actually storing data. Walrus is the first protocol to support storage challenges in asynchronous networks, preventing malicious actors from using network delays to pass verification without storing the data.
• Storage Node Churn: Walrus introduces a multi-stage epoch change protocol that handles the natural entry and exit of storage nodes in a permissionless system without interrupting the availability of data for reading or writing.
• Decentralized Application Needs: The sources highlight that Walrus addresses the "poor integrity and availability" of traditional web hosting for dApps, NFT data, AI training sets, and decentralized social media, which require neutral and high-integrity storage.
♻️ Backers and Infrastructure
Walrus is primarily backed and developed by Mysten Labs. The project relies on the following infrastructure and partners:
• Sui Blockchain: Walrus uses the Sui blockchain as a "computational black box" to handle control operations, such as registering blobs and managing storage space.
• Move Language: Critical coordination protocols are implemented using the Move smart contract language.
• WAL Token: The system's economic security is underpinned by staking the WAL token, which is used to reward honest storage nodes and penalize (slash) those who fail data challenges or shard migrations.
• Open-Source Community: The implementation is released as open-source and has been tested on a public testnet comprising over 100 independently operated storage nodes
♻️ Sui blockchain play in Walrus operations
The Sui blockchain serves as the control plane and foundational coordination layer for the Walrus network. While the actual data (blobs) is stored on a separate committee of storage nodes, Sui handles metadata, governance, and the economic lifecycle of the storage process.
The specific roles Sui plays in Walrus operations include:
1. Management of the "Point of Availability" (PoA)
Sui acts as the source of truth for whether data is officially "available" on the network.
• Blob Registration: A writer begins by submitting a transaction to the Sui blockchain to register a blob ID and acquire the necessary storage space.
• Proof of Availability: Once the writer collects enough signatures (2f+1) from storage nodes, they publish this "write certificate" on-chain. This creates a Point of Availability (PoA), which signals a formal obligation for storage nodes to keep that data accessible for a specified duration.
• Node Synchronization: Storage nodes actively listen to the Sui blockchain for these PoA events; if a node realizes it missed a blob during the initial write flow, the on-chain certificate triggers its self-healing recovery process.
2. Economic and Staking Infrastructure
The financial security of Walrus is built directly on Sui's infrastructure using the WAL token.
• Staking and Slashing: Walrus utilizes delegated staking implemented via self-custodied objects on Sui. If a storage node fails data challenges or mismanages shard migrations, the Walrus smart contracts on Sui assess penalties and "slash" the staked principal.
• Storage Resources: Reservations for storage space are represented as on-chain resources on Sui. These resources can be traded, split across time/space, or reassociated with new blobs, creating a secondary market for storage.
• Payments: All payments for writing and storing data are managed through Sui smart contracts, which distribute tokens to storage nodes at the end of each epoch.
3. Governance and Coordination
Sui provides the "computational black box" needed to maintain a total order of updates for the decentralized network.
• Committee Reconfiguration: Sui manages the transition between epochs. It records staking levels to determine shard assignments for the next committee of storage nodes.
• Storage Challenges: The protocol uses on-chain events, such as specific block heights, to trigger storage challenges. Nodes must submit proof-of-storage certificates to the blockchain to prove they are still holding the data they were assigned.
• Fraud Proofs: If a malicious writer uploads inconsistent data, storage nodes can attest to this on-chain. Once a quorum of f+1 attestations is reached, the blob is officially marked as invalid.
4. Technical Implementation (Move Language)
Critical coordination protocols for Walrus are implemented using the Move smart contract language on Sui. This allows for the creation of programmable resources—such as the staking objects—that provide a secure and auditable framework for managing the network's decentralized state
