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.

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 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.