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Permanent Registry Design Intent

Overview​

The AccountRegistry shared object in Walrus Memory is designed as a permanent append-only mapping of owner_address -> account_id. Even if a user decides to deactivate or "delete" their account, their address remains in the registry.

Security and architecture rationale​

  1. Preventing Duplicate Sybil Accounts: By maintaining a permanent record, this ensures that an address can only ever create exactly one MemWalAccount. This simplifies offchain indexing and prevents abuses related to account recreation.

  2. Deterministic Indexing: Indexers rely on a strict 1:1 mapping between a user's wallet address and their Walrus Memory storage container. If accounts could be deleted and recreated with a different ID, historical data queries and relational integrity offchain would be compromised.

  3. Data Immutability Context: In Web3, identity is persistent. The "deletion" of an account in Walrus Memory is treated as a deactivation (freezing) rather than true erasure, which aligns with blockchain state patterns. The account remains frozen, preserving the historical linkage.

  4. Seal Access Integrity: If an address could recreate its account, old data encrypted under the same Seal Key ID (bcs(address)) could become unpredictably accessible or orphaned depending on the new configuration. A permanent registry guarantees that the encryption identity mathematically maps to a single, stable onchain policy object forever.