With the maturity of the Web3, a single fact has become more apparent, and that is the impossibility of blockchains to hold large amounts of data. They are the consensus, security and execution experts.
but have difficulty in scaling with high storage requirements. And this is precisely where Walrus comes in the picture.
Walrus is not a competitor in blockchain. It is rather a modular decentralized storage infrastructure that complements the blockchains with what they do best, which is not on the chain. Separating storage from execution and consensus, Walrus assists in creating a more scalable Web3 stack which is cleaner.
The Issue: Bottlenecks of storage in Web3
The conventional blockchains are costly and ineffective in storing information. All the bytes stored on-chain need to be mirrored in validators and add to expenses and slow down networks. With the development of Web3 applications, NFTs, DeFi and AI, gaming and social platforms, this issue becomes even more critical.
There is a hard decision that developers have to make:
Register data in-store (safe but expensive)
Off-chain (low cost and less minimized trust) store data.
Web3 requires a native decentralized storage system that ensures trust without being able to scale.
Walrus Modular storage Layer
This is solved by Walrus, a decentralized and programmable storage layer, which is built to be a Web3 application.
Walrus permits blockchains to store everything, instead of coercing them to do so:
Remain lightweight
Scale more efficiently
Target agreement and implementation.
Using Walrus, off-chain storage can exist with large files, datasets, metadata and application state and can be provable, censorship-resistant and accessible.This fragmented structure is the future of Web3.
What I Like about Modularity in the Web3 Stack
The Web3 design of today is shifting to multi-layer systems just like the internet did:
Layer 1: Consensus & security
Layer 2: Implementation and performance
Layers Infrastructure Storage, indexing, messaging
Walrus is a perfect fit with this infrastructure layer allowing blockchains to lose storage without losing decentralization.
This approach unlocks:
Faster block times
Lower transaction fees
More complicated and information-intensive dApps.
Better user experiences
Use Cases Powered by Walrus
Walrus brings on board completely new classes of decentralized applications:
NFTs: Digital Media Permanent, decentralized storage of images and video files and metadata.
DeFi Protocols: Effective storage of history, analytics and evidences.
AI and Data Markets: Big Data that are stored and accessed in a decentralized fashion.
Gaming Metaverse: Sustained worlds not on centralised servers.
Social Media/ Content: Publish-to-anywhere publishing/ media hosting.
With integration with Walrus, developers will have a storage solution that is elastic with their applications.
The Wal-Mart in the Ecosystem
Walrus network is driven by the token, the $WAL, and this harmonizes the incentives between storage providers, developers, and users. It enables:
Storage services charges.
Participation and network security.
Decentralized growth that is sustainable.
Since decentralized storage is becoming more and more demanded, the use of $WAL gains more significance in the Web3 economy.
Infrastructure, not Competition, Walrus Is Infrastructure.
One such misconception is that blockchains should be replaced by new protocols in order to be meaningful. Walrus proves the opposite. It collaborates with the current blockchains, which makes the whole ecosystem stronger.
Walrus does not conflict with Layer 1s- it makes them powerful.
With Web3 in its current evolutionary stage towards modular and scalable networks, infrastructure layers such as Walrus will be needed.
The future of Web3 will not be based on monopoly systems. It will be constructed through interoperable layers that will collaborate.
Walrus is an important element of that future of a decentralized storage layer that is scaleable, efficient and long lasting.
To developers, builders and users alike, the history of Walrus as a part of the Web3 stack is important in understanding the direction of Web3 in the future.
