Walrus is designed as infrastructure, not just another token. It focuses on decentralized data storage combined with privacy-aware blockchain interactions, all built on Sui. Instead of pushing large files directly on-chain, Walrus treats them as blobs and distributes them across a network of storage nodes.
The technical core is erasure coding. Files are broken into multiple pieces plus recovery data, so they can be reconstructed even if some nodes fail. I’m interested in this approach because it avoids heavy duplication while still staying resilient. They’re solving availability with math, not brute force.
WAL is the token that aligns incentives. Storage providers stake and earn rewards for keeping data available. Users and holders participate in governance, deciding how the system evolves over time. They’re aiming for a structure where long-term reliability matters more than short-term speculation.
In practice, developers can build apps that store media, datasets, or documents without depending on centralized cloud services. The long-term goal looks simple but hard to execute: make decentralized storage practical, affordable, and boring enough that people can trust it. I’m watching whether adoption grows quietly rather than loudly.