Walrus has been developed as data layer and control plane.
Many Web3 developers find themselves in trouble as they have to make blockchains do what they are not supposed to. Blockchains are ideal in: evidence, logic, regulations, transactions. However, blockchains are awful with: large files, heavy data, and large storage.
Walrus is effective since it divides the task into two clean tasks:
Sui = control plane
This is where the "rules" live. Who owns the data? Who paid for storage? What is the reference to the file? Is there any evidence that the file is available? Such information is tiny, significant, and can be stored in a blockchain.
Walrus = data plane
The heavy data is stored there: videos, pictures, AI datasets, app frontends, logs, etc., and Walrus is made to store it on many nodes such that it is not required to place the bulk data on-chain.
The significance of this: it makes Web3 apps look more lifelike. Blockchain-level trust is provided to developers where it counts and storage-level efficiency is provided where it is required. It is simply apply blockchain to what it is doing well and do not make it look like a file
