For a long time, Web3 focused almost entirely on proving ownership. If a transaction was onchain and verifiable, the system was considered successful. That worked well in the early stages, but over time a deeper issue started to appear. Ownership alone does not guarantee usability. Users began returning to older NFTs, games, and applications only to discover that while the blockchain still showed proof, the actual content behind it was missing or broken. Images failed to load, metadata links were dead, and applications lost their original context.
This problem did not come from hacks or exploits. It came from neglect. Most Web3 projects relied on offchain storage systems that assumed constant maintenance and long-term availability. When teams moved on or infrastructure changed, data quietly disappeared. The blockchain remembered transactions forever, but the experience around them slowly eroded.
This is where Walrus Protocol becomes important. Walrus is designed to address long-term data availability rather than short-term performance. It treats storage as foundational infrastructure, not as a temporary dependency that can be replaced later. The goal is to ensure that digital assets and applications remain usable and meaningful even years after their creation.
As Web3 matures, users are becoming less tolerant of broken experiences. Trust is no longer built by innovation alone, but by reliability over time. Walrus supports this shift by helping Web3 preserve continuity, ensuring that ownership does not become symbolic due to missing data.
