Walrus exists because one deep problem keeps repeating across Web3 and that problem is data. Blockchains are excellent at agreement and verification but they were never designed to store and serve large amounts of information. As decentralized applications grow, they generate images, videos, AI datasets, game assets, logs, proofs, and archives, and this data quickly becomes too heavy and too expensive to place directly onchain. Centralized cloud storage solves scale but introduces trust risks and censorship concerns, while many decentralized storage systems struggle to offer strong availability guarantees. Walrus was created to live exactly in this gap, offering a decentralized storage and data availability network that feels strong enough for real world use while staying aligned with open and verifiable principles. Developed by Mysten Labs and designed to work closely with the Sui ecosystem, Walrus uses Sui as its coordination and settlement layer while dedicating itself fully to the problem of large scale data storage.
At its core, Walrus is built around a belief that data should not disappear and availability should be something that can be proven rather than assumed. Instead of copying full files across every node, Walrus transforms uploaded data into large binary objects and then breaks them into many encoded pieces using erasure coding. These encoded pieces are distributed across a committee of independent storage nodes. Because of this design, the original data can still be reconstructed even if a large portion of nodes fail or go offline. This removes fragility from the system and replaces it with resilience. Storage no longer feels temporary or uncertain. It starts to feel like infrastructure that applications can rely on without fear of sudden loss.
One of the most important ideas in Walrus is that storage is treated as a first class onchain object rather than an offchain promise. When someone stores data, metadata about that data is recorded on Sui, including its identity, size, and how long it is guaranteed to remain available. This creates a clear and verifiable moment where responsibility shifts. Before certification, the uploader is responsible for ensuring the data is uploaded correctly. After certification, Walrus is responsible for maintaining availability for the paid period. This clarity matters because it creates accountability. Applications can verify availability. Users can trust guarantees. Smart contracts can reason about storage without relying on vague assumptions.
Time inside Walrus is organized into epochs. Storage is purchased for a defined number of epochs, and the group of storage nodes responsible for maintaining data can change between epochs without breaking guarantees. This structure allows the network to remain flexible and secure over time. New operators can join, unreliable ones can leave, and the system continues to function without disruption. Even when parts of the network are unavailable, Walrus is designed so that data can still be read. This reflects an honest understanding of distributed systems, where failure is expected and reliability comes from planning for it rather than ignoring it.
Reading data from Walrus is designed to work under real world conditions, not just ideal ones. A client checks the current committee through Sui, requests encoded pieces from available storage nodes, reconstructs the original data, and verifies it against the stored commitment. Because reconstruction only requires a subset of pieces, data remains accessible even during partial outages. This behavior is essential for applications that must operate continuously and cannot afford downtime simply because some nodes are offline.
The WAL token sits at the center of this system and connects its economic and security layers. WAL is used to pay for storage, to stake and secure the network, and to participate in governance. Storage is paid upfront, which gives users clarity and predictability, while those payments are distributed over time to storage operators and stakers. This creates strong alignment between performance and rewards. Nodes that behave reliably are rewarded, while poor performance is penalized. Over time, this incentive structure pushes the network toward stability and long term reliability.
The supply design of WAL places strong emphasis on community participation and shared ownership. A large portion of the total supply is allocated to the community through incentives, subsidies, and long term reserves. This reflects a belief that decentralized infrastructure only survives when users, builders, and operators all have a stake in its success. Delegated staking allows participants to support reliable storage nodes without running hardware themselves, spreading trust and responsibility across a wide group instead of concentrating power.
Cost is handled honestly within Walrus. Storage pricing is based on the encoded size of data, which includes redundancy and metadata, rather than just raw file size. This means very small files can be relatively expensive, while large blobs are where Walrus truly shines. The system is designed for serious data workloads, supporting large files directly and allowing even larger datasets to be split into chunks without losing availability guarantees. This encourages developers to think carefully about how they use storage and to design applications that align with the strengths of the network.
Privacy within Walrus is addressed carefully and without false promises. By default, data stored on the network is public, which ensures transparency and verifiability. Confidentiality is achieved through encryption layered on top of storage rather than being assumed by default. Techniques such as threshold encryption allow access to be controlled without trusting a single party with full decryption keys, and access rules can be enforced onchain. This approach keeps the system honest while still giving builders the tools they need to create private experiences.
A quiet strength of Walrus is that it is not locked to a single execution environment. While Sui anchors storage proofs and metadata, applications using that data can live anywhere. This means Walrus can function as shared infrastructure across ecosystems, with Sui acting as the settlement layer for availability guarantees rather than a gatekeeper. Builders are free to choose where their application logic lives while still relying on Walrus for dependable data availability.
Walrus also fits naturally into the future of scalable systems. Rollups and offchain computation require data to be available when needed and provable after the fact, without bloating execution layers. Walrus provides this by offering affordable and verifiable data availability without full blockchain replication. This opens new possibilities for efficient scaling while preserving trust and transparency.
