Walrus is the core decentralized storage infrastructure in the Sui ecosystem, developed by Mysten Labs, and officially launched on the mainnet in March 2025. Designed for large files and massive unstructured data, the goal is to create a reliable, verifiable, and programmable data layer for the AI era, making data truly a tradable and governable asset.

In simple terms, Walrus is an efficient cloud storage on the blockchain, but it's decentralized and censorship-resistant compared to AWS S3, and cheaper, faster, and easier to deeply integrate with smart contracts than Filecoin/Arweave.

Core technology highlights:

1. Red Stuff Encoding: Files are fragmented, requiring approximately 4-5x redundancy to ensure high availability. Even if up to 2/3 of the fragments are lost, the data can still be fully restored. This saves a significant amount of cost and space compared to traditional full replication, while maintaining enterprise-level reliability.

2. Programmable Blob: Each stored file on the Sui chain is an object. Developers can directly manipulate it using Move smart contracts, setting expiration times, automatic renewals, transferring ownership, combining multiple Blobs, and even using them as collateral. This makes storage no longer static, but a programmable live data.

3. Chain-agnostic but Sui native: While deeply integrated with Sui, applications from other chains can easily connect through API/SDK/HTTP interfaces.

4. Data and Verification: Users can encrypt files and control access through the Seal protocol; proofs can be generated after storage to verify the source and integrity of the data. Particularly suitable for AI training sets, research archives, media assets, on-chain historical archives, and other scenarios.

In summary: Walrus is an efficient, programmable, decentralized large file hard drive prepared for AI × Web3, while $WAL is the fuel and governance key for this hard drive. Transforming data from centralized silos into composable, profitable on-chain assets.

@Walrus 🦭/acc $WAL #walrus