How Walrus makes availability observable onchain without storing the blob onchain
stored really means “trust me, it’s there” and the audit trail is basically a spreadsheet.Walrus is like a shipping receipt: you don’t put the container on the receipt, you log what must exist and who’s accountable.It splits a blob into erasure-coded slivers stored across nodes, while an onchain object records the blob ID, cryptographic commitments, and paid storage window.Nodes keep producing proof-of-availability certificates that get posted onchain, so availability becomes something a contract can verify without putting the blob onchain.The trade-off is added coordination and challenge overhead to keep that availability observable.WAL is used for storage payments and staking/delegation (and governance of parameters), aligning operators with long-lived availability.
