Walrus ($WAL) is gradually becoming critical infrastructure in the decentralized storage sector against the backdrop of surging storage demands in the AI era. This project built on the Sui chain, through practical technological solutions and continuously expanding ecosystem applications, articulates a new direction for Web3 storage.

From a technical perspective, Walrus's architectural design is well-considered. It employs erasure coding technology to distribute large files across multiple nodes, with the Sui chain providing "proofs of availability" to ensure data security—this solution not only addresses on-chain storage capacity and cost issues but also enables setting lifecycles for storage and supports automatic renewal. This means large files like videos, AI datasets, and NFTs are no longer constrained by on-chain space, giving developers greater freedom when building applications.

Beyond this is its privacy protection mechanism. Walrus encrypts data storage through a Seal encryption layer while entrusting access permissions to Sui smart contracts. This provides flexible permission control solutions for scenarios like subscription content, private DeFi, and identity credentials. Compared to traditional decentralized storage like IPFS and Arweave, Walrus's programmable nature means data is no longer static storage but can dynamically interact with smart contracts.

Ecosystem applications have already achieved substantial breakthroughs. Aave has introduced Walrus storage solutions within its $59 billion TVL ecosystem, while Humanity Protocol has migrated identity credential data to this network. These top-tier application integrations are no accident—Sui chain's high-speed characteristics (transaction confirmation <500ms) combined with Walrus's achieved storage scale (mainnet hundreds of TB data volume) form an effective synergy, providing reliable infrastructure support for complex scenarios like gaming, social applications, and AI workflows.

From a market perspective, Walrus is at a favorable inflection point. The decentralized storage sector continues heating up, while the explosive growth in dataset demands during the AI era is accelerating this process. As a native storage layer in the Sui ecosystem, Walrus has the opportunity to achieve sustained growth alongside ecosystem expansion—increases in Sui TVL and user base directly drive up storage demand. Currently, the network's over 1 billion WAL staking volume and node capacity developing toward PB-scale reflects accelerating infrastructure construction.

Regarding price expectations, based on current market data (CoinMarketCap, Bitget, and other platforms), prices may reach 0.15 USD levels in the short term during 2026-2027, and in the medium to long term, price ranges by 2030 are expected to reach 0.75-1.8 USD. This expectation is based on the project's progress in cross-chain expansion, privacy transaction integration, and other directions—areas that institutional investors (including recently entered Grayscale trusts) are also focusing on.

Of course, risks warrant objective assessment: long-term stability of the economic model requires verification, and sustained growth in application demand is essential. However, from the current trajectory, use cases continue diversifying and institutional capital entering signals positive momentum. In the Web3 storage sector, Walrus is accumulating increasingly favorable conditions.