Walrus uses ACDS to 'redefine the problem'

Azu is here, and I am increasingly tired of the narrative that 'storage = throwing files to a bunch of nodes.' The real challenge has never been 'can store,' but rather: in an open network, nodes will drop, change, and act maliciously, and the network may also experience long delays—how do you ensure that data can ultimately be shared completely in such a world? One smart point of Walrus is that it does not rush to sell solutions, but instead rewrites 'what decentralized storage needs to solve' into a more serious goal: ACDS (Asynchronous Complete Data-Sharing). Simply put: it does not assume network synchronization, does not assume everyone is honest, and even allows Byzantine faults, but the system still needs to deliver complete data 'to the right place.' This step seems to tell the industry: don't fool yourself with 'usable under normal circumstances'; the real battle is about availability and consistency under the worst conditions.

The paper clearly states its contributions—Walrus introduces Red Stuff and positions it as the first protocol to efficiently solve ACDS under Byzantine faults. The weight of this statement lies in the fact that many systems' 'erasure codes' only save space, but once faced with node churn (frequent going offline and online), they must perform full recovery, ultimately eating back the cost saved by recovery bandwidth; Red Stuff takes the path of 'normalizing recovery capabilities,' making repairs closer to a pay-per-gap model, and can also tackle storage challenges in an asynchronous network, preventing opponents from exploiting network delays to 'pass validation without storing data.'

This 'problem definition first' engineering temperament can also be seen echoed on the ecological side. Walrus's official Twitter provided hard data in the Haulout mainnet hackathon result post: 887 people registered, 282 projects submitted, covering 12+ countries. You will find that only when the underlying most core 'asynchronous + adversarial' challenges are clarified can developers truly dare to bring data, applications, and even AI workflows up to submit their assignments.

It does not shout 'we are faster and cheaper' first, but rather writes out the most avoided sentence in the industry—under what assumptions do you guarantee what properties. ACDS establishes the standard, while Red Stuff implements it.

@Walrus 🦭/acc $WAL #Walrus