WALWalrus (WAL) Price

1. Project introduction

Leveraging innovations in erasure coding, Walrus enables fast and robust encoding of unstructured data blobs into smaller slivers distributed and stored over a network of storage nodes. A subset of slivers can be used to rapidly reconstruct the original blob, even when up to two-thirds of the slivers are missing. This is possible while keeping the replication factor down to a minimal 4x-5x, similar to existing cloud-based services, but with the additional benefits of decentralization and resilience to more widespread faults.

2. Team introduction

The new protocol developed by Mysten Labs, the development team of Sui.

3. Token application and distribution

Token application:

Payment

Users pay for storage capacity on Walrus with WAL. User prices are fixed and prepaid, so they don’t have to worry about fluctuations in the price of storage or the WAL token during the lifetime of their contract. However, contract lengths are fixed and users cannot exit them without forfeiting their payment thereby ensuring nodes can lower prices on storage in the future without risking all existing contracts canceling and renewing at the lower rate. Thus, the long-term enforcement on both sides delivers stability to the relationship.

Security

Delegated Staking of WAL tokens underpins Walrus’s security. Users can stake tokens to participate in the network’s security regardless of whether they operate storage services directly. Nodes compete with one another to attract stake from users, which in turn governs the assignment of data to them. Nodes, and those that delegate their stake to them, earn rewards or are punished based on its behavior.

Governance

Governance for Walrus adjusts the parameters in the system, and operates through the WAL token. Nodes collectively determine the level of various penalties, with votes equivalent to their respective WAL stakes. Walrus nodes, who often bear the costs of other nodes’ underperformance, calibrate the appropriate financial repercussions.

Token distribution:

• 10% for Walrus user airdrop

4% pre-mainnet allocation

6% distributed after mainnet

Fully unlocked, this part of the tokens will be directly distributed to community members of Sui and Walrus ecology who have or will actively promote the development of Walrus and participate in it in a meaningful way. The distribution range includes the initial Walrus airdrop as well as direct distribution of future tokens.

• 43% goes to community reserve

690 million WAL will be available when the network launches, and the remainder will be released in a linear unlocking manner until March 2033. This part of the funds is used for the long-term development and growth of the Walrus ecosystem, including community funding and plans, developer support, Walrus core research, incentive programs, community activities, hackathons, and other ecological projects, and is managed by the Walrus Foundation.

• 7% for investor distribution

Unlocking begins 12 months after the autonomous network goes live, and this part of the funds is reserved for Walrus investors.

• 30% allocated to core contributors

20% allocated to early contributors: 4 years to unlock, 1 year to lock up.

10% is used for Mysten Labs distribution: 50 million WAL will be unlocked when the mainnet is launched, and the remaining portion will be continuously released in a linear unlocking manner until March 2030

This portion of the funding will be allocated to contributors supporting Walrus’ early engineering, infrastructure, security, development, and operations, and will be unlocked over time to ensure core contributors are aligned with Walrus’ long-term goals.

• 10% for storage subsidy

50-month linear unlocking, this part of the funds is used to subsidize the cost of storage nodes to support the growth of the fee base.