How does WAL token work for storage payments

WAL is the native payment currency for buying storage capacity on the Walrus decentralized storage network, and its flow is designed so users pay once up front while nodes and stakers are paid out over time. This turns each storage purchase into a long lived revenue stream for the protocol’s operators instead of a one off fee that disappears the moment data is written. When a user or dApp wants to store data, they specify how much data they need to store and for how long, then pay the full price in WAL at the start of the contract. Pricing is linear in both the data size and the duration, so doubling either the amount of data or the storage time roughly doubles the WAL required, which makes costs predictable for applications. Smart contracts on Sui manage this entire process: they lock in the user’s WAL payment, track the storage term, and orchestrate how funds are streamed out to the network’s storage providers over subsequent epochs. A key design goal is to keep storage pricing stable in fiat terms even if WAL’s market price moves around. To do this, Walrus uses an internal pricing model that pegs storage to external cost benchmarks and adjusts how much WAL is charged per unit of storage, shielding users from token volatility during the life of their contract. Documentation explains that user prices are fixed and prepaid at the outset, so someone paying for a year of storage does not suddenly owe more WAL mid term if the token appreciates. Once the upfront payment is made, the protocol does not dump all of that WAL instantly on node operators; instead, it streams rewards to them gradually across the lifetime of the stored data. Each epoch, a portion of the locked WAL is released to storage nodes and to stakers who have delegated to those nodes, with the precise distribution following formula based rules that link revenues to storage volume, subsidy rates, and node commissions. This intertemporal design aligns economic flows with the ongoing cost of actually keeping data online, since operators incur expenses hardware, replication, bandwidth continuously, not just at upload time. Users pay exclusively in WAL for storage, but the network still needs SUI to cover gas costs for on chain operations like contract calls and availability proofs. In practice, this means WAL acts as the medium of exchange inside the storage marketplace, while SUI handles settlement overhead at the base layer blockchain level. To allow fine grained accounting, Walrus also defines FROST as the smallest denomination, where 1 WAL equals 1 billion FROST, letting the system meter tiny fractions of a token when dealing with small files or short storage windows. The protocol bootstraps this economy with a subsidy pool: 10 percent of total WAL supply is reserved to top up node revenues during the early growth phase so that storage fees can be kept low for users. In formulas used in Walrus’ pricing model, subsidy payments cover the gap between what users pay and what nodes need to earn to be profitable, effectively letting the network offer below market storage while still maintaining sustainable operator incentives. Over time, as organic fee revenue grows, the reliance on subsidies is expected to fall, and storage prices can increasingly reflect real demand for on chain data. Because WAL is also tied to staking and slashing, storage payments indirectly support network security. The WAL paid by users flows into the same economy that rewards honest nodes and punishes underperformers through future slashing and penalty mechanisms, with part of some penalties and stake shift fees burned to create deflationary pressure. This means that when someone pays in WAL to store data, they are simultaneously funding protocol security, incentivizing reliability, and contributing to a token supply that can shrink over time. $WAL {spot}(WALUSDT) #Walrus @WalrusProtocol