WAL Tokenomics FAQ
Common questions about the WAL token and how value flows through Walrus focus on mechanics that are visible to users and integrators: what you pay, where those payments go, how staking and rewards work, and what actually happens when you burn a blob.
For the authoritative economic model, including token supply and long-term incentive design, see the Walrus whitepaper. Where a third-party summary disagrees with the whitepaper or with walrus info, treat those two as the source of truth.
Fees and fee flows
You pay for Walrus in two tokens: WAL covers storage and write fees, and SUI covers the onchain gas for Sui transactions.
What is WAL used for?
WAL is the native token of Walrus. You use it to pay for storage and to stake with storage nodes. Walrus prices storage at a fixed $0.023/GB/month, and you pay in WAL, with the WAL amount adjusting periodically through an onchain price vote that storage nodes update as the WAL price changes. See Storage Costs for the full pricing model.
You also pay SUI, not WAL, for the Sui transactions that register, certify, and extend blobs. WAL covers storage and write fees, and SUI covers onchain gas.
Where do my storage fees go?
When you buy storage, you pay your WAL into the storage fund, which holds WAL for the epochs across which Walrus stores your blob. At the end of each epoch, the fund distributes WAL to storage nodes based on their measured performance, which nodes determine through light audits of each other. Stakers receive a share of these fees as rewards. See Storage Costs.
What is the write fee?
Registering a blob costs a WAL write fee in addition to the storage payment. This fee keeps blob deletion and storage reuse sustainable, so write-heavy workloads pay for the work they create.
What are subsidies?
On networks that configure an onchain storage subsidy, the subsidy can offset part of the WAL storage cost. A subsidy changes how much WAL a store consumes, but it does not change who signs the store or who pays the SUI gas. The Network Reference lists the Mainnet subsidies package. See also Sponsored and walletless uploads.
Staking, re-delegation, and rewards
Walrus runs a delegated proof-of-stake system on the WAL token. The staking contracts manage committee changes between epochs.
How do staking rewards work?
Anyone can delegate WAL to storage nodes. Each epoch, Walrus assigns shards to nodes roughly in proportion to the stake delegated to them, and by staking you earn a share of the storage fees that node collects. For the full walkthrough, see Staking and Unstaking.
How do I move stake between nodes (re-delegation)?
To move stake from one node to another, unstake from the first node and stake the withdrawn WAL with the second. Both actions follow the timing rules below, so plan a re-delegation around epoch boundaries rather than expecting it to take effect immediately.
When do staking and unstaking take effect?
Committee selection for an epoch happens ahead of time, at the midpoint of the previous epoch, because moving shards between nodes takes time.
- Staking: To affect the committee in epoch
e, stake before the midpoint of epoche - 1. Stake added after that point first becomes active in epoche + 1. - Unstaking: A withdrawal requested before the midpoint of epoch
e - 1stops earning at the start of epoche. Requested after that point, the stake stays active and keeps accruing rewards through epoche, and the balance is available at the start of epoche + 1.
For example, to affect the committee in epoch 10, stake before the midpoint of epoch 9. Stake you add after that midpoint first becomes active in epoch 11. A withdrawal you request before the midpoint of epoch 9 stops earning at the start of epoch 10. If you request it after that midpoint, the stake keeps earning through epoch 10, and the balance becomes available at the start of epoch 11.
Can Walrus slash my stake?
Walrus never slashes your delegated principal. If a storage node misbehaves, committee members can vote to slash it, and executing that slash burns the node operator's accumulated commission, not the WAL you delegated. Separately, poor node performance lowers the rewards a node earns, which reduces the rewards you receive as a delegator. Choosing reliable nodes therefore protects your rewards, while your staked principal stays safe from slashing. For the operator side, see Slashing.
Burning and supply
The term burn refers to two different actions in Walrus: protocol-level WAL burns, and burning a blob's Sui object. These are not the same, and neither happens because you store or delete data.
Does Walrus burn WAL when I store or delete data?
The system does not burn your storage payment all at once, and deleting a blob does not refund WAL. Protocol-level WAL burns do exist, though, so it is not accurate to say Walrus never burns WAL.
When you store a blob, your WAL goes into the storage fund, which distributes it to storage nodes as rewards across the epochs that Walrus stores your blob. At each epoch change, the system burns 3% of that epoch's total rewards before distributing the rest to nodes and their stakers. Slashing a misbehaving node also burns that operator's accumulated commission.
Users commonly mistake two things for burning WAL, but neither is:
- Deleting a blob: Does not burn WAL and does not refund your storage payment.
- Burning a blob's Sui object: Removes an onchain object to reclaim a SUI storage rebate. It does not touch the WAL token. See the next question.
For the full economic model, including the token supply, see the Walrus whitepaper. Do not rely on social media summaries for supply claims.
What does burning a blob actually do?
Burning a blob removes the blob's corresponding Sui object, which reclaims most of that object's SUI storage cost through a Sui storage rebate. Burning the Sui object:
- Does not delete the blob data from Walrus.
- Does not refund the WAL you paid for storage.
- Forfeits lifecycle control of the blob, so you can no longer extend a permanent blob or extend or delete a deletable blob.
See Burn blobs for the CLI workflow, and Storage Costs for when burning saves money.
Does the epoch burn include subsidies?
The 3% epoch burn applies to the full rewards balance of the epoch, after subsidies join it. Subsidies from the subsidies contract join the same per-epoch rewards balance that holds user storage payments, so the burn base includes both. Measured against user payments alone, the burn is larger: when the usage-dependent subsidy is at 800%, burning 3% of total rewards equals roughly 25% of what users paid.
Why is storage priced in dollars but paid in WAL?
Pricing storage at a fixed $0.023/GB/month gives you predictable, budgetable costs regardless of WAL price movement. Storage nodes track the WAL price from multiple sources and periodically update an onchain price vote, so the WAL amount charged for a given store adjusts to keep the USD-denominated price stable. See How pricing works.