Decentralized storage has always been a core challenge of Web3 infrastructure. We often see two extremes: on one side are traditional cloud storage giants like AWS and Google Cloud, which are cheap and easy to use but full of censorship risks and single points of failure; on the other side are pioneer projects like Filecoin and Arweave, which promise decentralization but have high costs due to high replication factors, resulting in low user conversion rates.

Walrus in the Sui ecosystem is attempting to break this deadlock. It is an independent project incubated by Mysten Labs (the core team behind the Sui blockchain), specifically designed for massive unstructured data storage—videos, images, AI training datasets, NFT media, on-chain historical records—data that traditional blockchains find difficult to handle.

The core innovation of Walrus is that it treats data as a programmable resource on the chain. This is not just an upload tool; it considers "blob" (data blocks) as composable, monetizable, and verifiable on-chain objects. Simply put, once your data is stored, it can circulate among various DApps, generate economic value, and have its integrity verified. This is something traditional storage solutions cannot achieve.

Technically, Walrus adopts the Red Stuff encoding algorithm as its core breakthrough. Compared to Filecoin’s high-replication design, Red Stuff significantly reduces storage costs through more efficient data redundancy encoding while maintaining data availability guarantees. What does this mean? It means the storage economic model becomes truly feasible—no longer a game only big capital can afford.

In terms of application scenarios, Walrus covers a wide range. AI projects need to store massive training data—Walrus can handle that. NFT platforms require permanent hosting of high-definition multimedia—Walrus is suitable. DAOs need to preserve governance records over the long term—still applicable. Even blockchain’s own historical data can be stored off-chain with verifiable on-chain proof through Walrus.

The $WAL token in this system is not just a governance tool; it directly incentivizes participants in the storage network—storage providers earn tokens by running nodes and offering storage capacity. This is similar to Filecoin’s logic, but thanks to the efficiency of Red Stuff encoding, the entire economic model becomes more sustainable.

After the mainnet launch in 2025, Walrus quickly gained some popularity, testing whether the market truly needs such a solution. The key questions are: Are user costs really lower than Filecoin’s? Is the data availability promise strong enough? Can the application ecosystem expand rapidly? These factors will determine whether it can ultimately become a key infrastructure in Sui and the entire Web3 storage ecosystem.