One of the most uncomfortable truths Web3 is starting to face is that blockchains remember transactions forever, but they don’t guarantee that the meaning behind those transactions survives. You can still own an NFT or an onchain asset years later, yet the image fails to load, the metadata link is broken, or the application that gave it context no longer exists. Nothing malicious happened. The system simply wasn’t designed to age well.
This is the gap that Walrus Protocol is trying to close. Walrus focuses on long-term decentralized data availability, treating data as a core part of digital ownership rather than an external dependency. Instead of assuming storage services will always stay online, Walrus is built around the idea that access should persist even when teams move on, platforms change, or incentives disappear.
As Web3 matures, users are returning to older assets and experiences, and expectations are changing. Reliability matters more than novelty. People don’t want to troubleshoot missing content or chase new links just to understand what they already own. Walrus supports a more responsible version of Web3, one where ownership remains meaningful because the underlying data doesn’t quietly vanish over time.
