Walrus, a storage protocol running on Sui, has recently been doing something interesting — making data on the blockchain come alive.

In traditional thinking, data is just data; once stored, it’s stored. But Walrus takes a different approach by transforming static data blobs into objects that smart contracts can directly interact with. This way, data can not only be stored but also verified, extended in retention period, support ownership transfer, and even connect directly with DeFi applications.

From a technical perspective, Walrus uses erasure coding technology to balance cost and decentralization availability, requiring approximately 4-5 times redundancy overhead. This trade-off may seem costly, but since its launch, it has attracted over 120 projects to integrate, indicating strong market recognition. Especially within Sui’s verifiable AI stack, Walrus has become a core storage layer for hosting tamper-proof datasets.

If this model truly works out, data can shift from being an “incurred cost” to a “programmable asset,” providing foundational support for scenarios like NFT, RWA, AI, and more. This is a significant boost to Sui’s ecosystem differentiation. The storage track may indeed be evolving from static repositories into dynamic value layers.