WAL Tokenomics FAQ
This page answers common questions about the WAL token and how value flows through Walrus. It focuses 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. Storage is priced at a fixed $0.023/GB/month and paid in WAL, with the WAL amount adjusting automatically 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, your WAL is paid into the storage fund, which holds WAL for the epochs your blob is stored across. At the end of each epoch, the fund distributes WAL to storage nodes based on their measured performance, which is determined 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 Mainnet subsidies package is listed in the Network Reference. See also Sponsored and walletless uploads.
Staking, re-delegation, and rewards
Walrus runs a delegated proof-of-stake system on the WAL token. Committee changes between epochs are managed by the staking contracts.
How do staking rewards work?
Anyone can delegate WAL to storage nodes. Shards are assigned to nodes each epoch 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.
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 simply 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 your blob is stored. 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.
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.