The Sui ecosystem welcomes a new decentralized storage solution Walrus

After the decentralized storage network Arweave launched its computing layer AO, its ecosystem and popularity have significantly increased. Sui, as a general-purpose computing chain, has also launched its own decentralized storage network Walrus, which may spark a new wave in the storage field.

Background Overview

Walrus is the latest product launched by Mysten Labs, the development company behind Sui, positioned as a Decentralization storage network. The project name "Walrus" means "walrus", symbolizing the reliability and adaptability of the storage system. Although Walrus is built on Sui and utilizes Sui to coordinate storage space and metadata sales, using Walrus does not require developing applications on Sui. Walrus will issue an independent governance token, WAL, as a functional token.

Limitations of Existing Storage Solutions

Currently, the decentralized storage protocols are mainly divided into two categories: fully replicated systems and systems using Reed-Solomon(RS) encoding. Fully replicated systems such as Filecoin and Arweave have the advantage of high file availability, but they face issues such as high storage costs and vulnerability to Sybil attacks. Although RS encoding systems have higher storage efficiency, the encoding and decoding process is complex, and a large amount of data transfer is required when replacing nodes.

In addition, the existing systems face two common challenges: the need for continuous data retention verification and the coordination requirements between storage nodes. These factors limit the scalability of the system and increase complexity.

The Innovations of Walrus

Walrus adopts an innovative 2D encoding algorithm called RedStuff, specifically designed for Byzantine fault tolerance. This algorithm is based on fountain codes, combining fast operations and high reliability.

RedStuff encodes data into primary and secondary slices through a simple XOR operation, distributing them across storage nodes. It employs recovery thresholds of different dimensions to achieve asynchronous writing and asynchronous storage proof, while keeping the total replication factor below 5 times.

Compared to RS encoding, RedStuff has a faster encoding and decoding speed, lower storage overhead, strong scalability, and high elasticity and fault tolerance.

Walrus also introduces an efficient committee reconfiguration protocol and an asynchronous challenge protocol to address node loss and validate data storage. Its economic model is based on staking, combined with reward and penalty mechanisms, where the cost of storage certification grows logarithmically with the number of files.

Future Outlook

The Walrus project plans to launch an independent WAL token for functions such as staking and governance. Holding SUI may be a way to receive WAL airdrops. Currently, Walrus is about to launch its testnet, with the mainnet launch date to be determined. Developers can now refer to the official documentation to understand how to use Walrus to deploy websites.

As an important complement to the Sui ecosystem, Walrus is expected to bring a brand new solution to the field of Decentralization storage, and it is worth the industry's continuous attention to its development trends.