Decentralized storage often forces a trade-off: systems are either secure but expensive, or cheap but unreliable. Walrus is designed to break this trade-off by optimizing how data is stored, recovered, and verified across a decentralized network.
Walrus keeps storage cheap by avoiding full data replication. Instead of storing many copies of the same file, it distributes encoded pieces across nodes. This dramatically reduces storage overhead while still guaranteeing that files can always be reconstructed.
It stays fast by minimizing recovery work. When a node fails, Walrus does not re-download entire files. It only repairs the missing parts, which saves bandwidth and keeps read speeds stable even as the network scales.
Walrus is also safer because storage nodes must continuously prove they actually hold the data. These cryptographic checks work even when the network is slow or unreliable, preventing nodes from faking storage.
A practical use case is decentralized social platforms. Posts, images, and videos remain available without relying on centralized servers, while costs stay low and content stays verifiable.
By combining efficiency, performance, and strong security guarantees, Walrus turns decentralized storage into infrastructure that real applications can depend on.
