Announcing Testnet

Published on: 2024-10-17

Today, a community of operators launches the first public Walrus Testnet. This is an important milestone in validating the operation of Walrus as a decentralized blob store, by operating it on a set of independent storage nodes, that change over time through a delegated proof of stake mechanism. The Testnet also brings functionality updates relating to governance, epochs, and blob deletion.

Blob deletion

The most important user-facing new feature is optional blob deletion. The uploader of a blob can optionally indicate a blob is "deletable". This information is stored in the Sui blob metadata object, and is also included in the event denoting when the blob is certified. Subsequently, the owner of the Sui blob metadata object can "delete" it. As a result storage for the remaining period is reclaimed and can be used by subsequent blob storage operations.

Blob deletion allows more fine-grained storage cost management: smart contracts that wrap blob metadata objects can define logic that stores blobs and delete them to minimize costs, and reclaim storage space before Walrus epochs end.

However, blob deletion is not an effective privacy mechanism in itself: copies of the blob may exist outside Walrus storage nodes on caches and end-user stores or devices. Furthermore, if the identical blob is stored by multiple Walrus users, the blob will still be available on Walrus until no copy exists. Thus deleting your own copy of a blob cannot guarantee that it is deleted from Walrus as a whole.

Epochs

Walrus Testnet enables multiple epochs. Initially, the epoch duration is set to a single day to ensure the logic of epoch change is thoroughly tested. At Mainnet, epochs will likely be multiple weeks long.

The progress of epochs makes the expiry epoch of blobs meaningful, and blobs will become unavailable after their expiry epoch. The store command may be used to extend the expiry epoch of a blob that is still available. This operation is efficient and only affects payments and metadata, and does not re-upload blob contents.

The WAL token and the Testnet WAL faucet

Payments for blob storage and extending blob expiry are denominated in Testnet WAL, a Walrus token issued on the Sui Testnet. Testnet WAL has no value, and an unlimited supply; so no need to covet or hoard it, it's just for testing purposes and only issued on Sui Testnet.

WAL also has a smaller unit called FROST, similar to MIST for SUI. 1 WAL is equal to 1 billion (1000000000) FROST.

To make Testnet WAL available to all who want to experiment with the Walrus Testnet we provide a utility and smart contract to convert Testnet SUI (which also has no value) into Testnet WAL using a one-to-one exchange rate. This is chosen arbitrarily, and generally one should not read too much into the actual WAL denominated costs of storage on Testnet. They have been chosen arbitrarily.

Find out how to request Testnet WAL tokens through the CLI.

Decentralization through staking & unstaking

The WAL token may also be used to stake with storage operators. Staked WAL can be unstaked and re-staked with other operators or used to purchase storage.

Each epoch storage nodes are selected and allocated storage shards according to their delegated stake. At the end of each epoch payments for storing blobs for the epoch are distributed to storage nodes and those that delegate stake to them. Furthermore, important network parameters (such as total available storage and storage price) are set by the selected storage operators each epoch according to their stake weight.

A staking web dApp is provided to experiment with this functionality. Community members have also created explorers that can be used to view storage nodes when considering who to stake with. Staking ensures that the ultimate governance of Walrus, directly in terms of storage nodes, and indirectly in terms of parameters and software they chose, rests with WAL Token holders.

Under the hood and over the next months we will be testing many aspects of epoch changes and storage node committee changes: better shard allocation mechanisms upon changes or storage node stake; efficient ways to sync state between storage nodes; as well as better ways for storage nodes to follow Sui event streams.

New Move contracts & documentation

As part of the Testnet release of Walrus, the documentation and Move Smart contracts have been updated, and can be found in the walrus-docs repository.

New Walrus Sites features

With the move to Walrus Testnet, Walrus Sites have also been updated! The new features in this update greatly increase the flexibility, speed, and security of Walrus Sites. Developers can now specify client-side routing rules, and add custom HTTP headers to the portals' responses for their site, expanding the possibilities for what Walrus Sites can do.

Migrate now to take advantage of these new features! The old Walrus Sites, based on Walrus Devnet, will still be available for a short time. However, Devnet will be wiped soon (as described below), so it is recommended to migrate as soon as possible.

Discontinuation of Walrus Devnet

The previous Walrus Devnet instance is now deprecated and will be shut down after 2024-10-31. All data stored on Walrus Devnet (including Walrus Sites) will no longer be accessible at that point. You need to re-upload all data to Walrus Testnet if you want it to remain accessible. Walrus Sites also need to be migrated.