目标和用例

Walrus支持存储和读取blob的操作，并证明和验证其可用性。它确保内容在存储节点遭受拜占庭故障时仍然可用和可检索。它提供API，通过CLI、SDK和web2 HTTP技术访问存储的内容，并支持缓存和内容分发网络（CDN）等内容交付基础设施。

在底层，存储成本是blob大小的一个小的固定倍数（大约5倍）。高级纠删编码使成本保持较低，与传统区块链的数据完全复制形成对比，例如存储在Sui对象中的数据的>100倍倍数。因此，在Walrus上存储更大资源（最多几个GiB）的成本比在Sui或其他区块链上低得多。由于编码的blob存储在所有存储节点上，Walrus还提供了比少量副本存储完整blob的设计更高的鲁棒性。

Walrus使用Sui链进行协调和支付。可用存储表示为可以获取、拥有、拆分、合并和转移的Sui对象。存储空间可以在一段时间内绑定到存储的blob，生成的Sui对象用于在链上通过智能合约证明可用性，或在链下使用轻客户端证明可用性。

下一章详细讨论了与存储、检索和可用性相关的上述操作。

未来，我们计划在Walrus中包含一些最小的治理，以允许存储节点在存储周期之间进行更改。Walrus还兼容定期支付以继续存储。我们还计划实施基于挑战的存储认证，以确保blob已存储或至少可用。Walrus还允许存储小部分blob的轻节点通过证明可用性和协助恢复获得奖励。我们将在后续文档中讨论这些主题。我们还在单独的文档中提供编码方案的详细信息。

非目标

有几件事是Walrus明确不做的：

  • Walrus不会重新实现可能进行地理复制或延迟小于几十毫秒的CDN。相反，它确保传统CDN可用并与Walrus缓存兼容。

  • Walrus不会重新实现具有共识或执行功能的完整智能合约平台。它在必要时依赖Sui智能合约来管理Walrus资源和流程，包括支付、存储周期等。

  • Walrus支持存储任何blob，包括加密的blob。然而，Walrus本身不是分布式密钥管理基础设施，不管理和分发加密或解密密钥以支持完整的私有存储生态系统。然而，它可以为此类基础设施提供存储层。

用例

应用程序构建者可以将Walrus与任何L1或L2区块链结合使用，以构建需要以去中心化方式存储大量数据并可能认证为可用的体验：

  • Storage of media for NFT or dApps: Walrus can directly store and serve media such as images, sounds, sprites, videos, other game assets, and so on. This is publicly available media that is accessed using HTTP requests at caches to create multimedia dApps.

  • AI related use cases: Walrus can store clean data sets of training data, datasets with a known and verified provenance, models, weights and proofs of correct training for AI models. It can also store and ensure the availability of an AI model output.

  • Storage of long term archival of blockchain history: Walrus can act as a lower-cost decentralized store to store blockchain history. For Sui, this can include sequences of checkpoints with all associated transaction and effects content, as well as historic snapshots of the blockchain state, code, or binaries.

  • Support availability for L2s: Walrus allows parties to certify the availability of blobs, as required by L2s that need data to be stored and be attested as available to all. This may also include availability of extra audit data such as validity proofs, zero knowledge proofs of correct execution or large fraud proofs.

  • Support a fully decentralized web experience: Walrus can host fully decentralized web experiences, including all resources (such as js, css, html, media). These can not only provide content, but also host the UX of dApps to enable applications with fully decentralized front end and back ends on chain. Walrus puts the full "web" into web3.

  • Support subscription models for media: Creators can store encrypted media on Walrus and only provide access via decryption keys to parties that have paid a subscription fee or have paid for content. Walrus provides the storage, encryption and decryption needs to happen off the system.