Decentralized storage has always had an industry unwritten rule—if you want to build a storage network, just create your own public chain. Filecoin, Arweave, Chia have all done this.

But Mysten Labs refuses to follow that path.

Recently, while reviewing the Walrus white paper v2.0, what truly impressed me wasn't the storage algorithm itself, but the boldness of its architecture design: Walrus doesn't build its own consensus layer at all; instead, it directly "parasitizes" on the Sui blockchain.

Why is this so clever? Because it does one thing that sounds simple but is difficult to execute—**completely separating control and data**.

You might be familiar with the pitfalls traditional storage public chains have fallen into. Handling both consensus mechanisms and massive data storage makes the network prone to the classic bottleneck effect: either fast transaction processing but slow storage, or smooth storage but sluggish transfers. Wanting both and getting neither.

Walrus's approach is different. Page 6 of the white paper details this model: it treats the Sui blockchain as the "brain," responsible for all consensus, accounting, and verification logic. Meanwhile, storage nodes focus solely on being the "muscle," handling data redundancy and availability.

How efficient is this division of labor? Imagine no longer needing storage nodes to participate in consensus competition—they can dedicate all their resources to reliability. Sui's validator community has already solved the consensus problem, so Walrus can confidently build its storage layer on top of it—enjoying Sui's security without reinventing the wheel.

This is the true form of Web3 infrastructure: professionals doing professional work, achieving maximum efficiency through modular architecture.