Walrus Protocol, the digital storage solution, has big news coming. The Mysten Labs backed platform, the same team behind Sui, announced its mainnet. This should go live 27th March 2025. Its $WAL token TGE and airdrop could possibly also go live on this day. Furthermore, Walrus raised $140 million in funding.
Let’s take a closer look at what is happening at Walrus Protocol.
Walrus Protocol Raised $140 Million
The Walrus Foundation managed to raise $140 million. Standard Crypto led this funding round. Other participants were, among others,
- a16z crypto
- Electric Capital
- Creditcoin
- Lvna Capital
- Protagonist
- Franklin Templeton Digital Assets
- Karatage
- RW3 Ventures
- Comma3 Ventures
- The Raptor Group.
So, some big and well-known names are involved. For example, Sui already has a strategic partnership with Franklin Templeton. This fund should speed up the growth of programmable storage on Sui. The Foundation will also use this to expand and maintain its storage platform.
Big news in decentralized storage!
Walrus Foundation has secured $140,000,000 in fundraising, led by @standardcrypto, to scale programmable storage built on @SuiNetwork.
Storage isn’t just storage anymore – it’s dynamic, verifiable, and programmable. AI datasets, blockchain… pic.twitter.com/aNPZ4FRo6h
— Walrus ????/acc (@WalrusProtocol) March 20, 2025
This is the first fundraise event by Mysten Labs for Walrus Protocol. Back in 2022, Sui managed to raise $300 million. So, Walrus seems to be on the right track.
Walrus Protocol Mainnet Goes Live 27th March 2025
The next big Walrus event in the pipeline is its mainnet going live come 27th March. After a successful testnet phase, the big day for mainnet is nearing. This allows for new possibilities in digital storage options. For instance, Walrus is decentralized. This means that there’s no central entity that can delete your files, like Google.
Happy blobday to those that celebrate. We bring exciting news!
1️⃣ Walrus Mainnet will be live on March 27
2️⃣ Walrus Tokenomics unveiled ????
3️⃣ $140M secured in funding to make data truly programmable???????? pic.twitter.com/LeGDJs865c
— Walrus ????/acc (@WalrusProtocol) March 20, 2025
The Sui Network established itself as a fast, secure, and low cost platform. Walrus has the same features. This makes Walrus faster and cheaper than what is currently available. In the blockchain space, Filecoin and Arweave are its competitors. However, Walrus Protocol has various advantages, besides being faster and cheaper. For example, storage size and duration are also better on Walrus.
Its ecosystem is also growing. Plume Network, a new and upcoming RWA platform, chose Walrus. Many protocols in the Sui ecosystem, also opted for Walrus, like Cetus.
RWA + Move = The Future@PlumeNetwork has chosen @WalrusProtocol to provide secure, programmable storage for all applicable apps in its ecosystem, ensuring verified asset data for TradFi & DeFi.
Walrus is here to help L1s and L2s store their data. pic.twitter.com/3jiSQF4Hn3
— Walrus ????/acc (@WalrusProtocol) March 11, 2025
Other ecosystem partners are, for instance,
- Soundness, for fast, cheap, and censorship-resistant zk proofs.
- Chainbase is the largest omni chain data network for AI. It can bring Walrus to over 220 blockchains.
- Superb for decentralized gaming, and many more.
With its mainnet, the $WAL token TGE and airdrop shouldn’t be far behind. So, let’s take a closer look at this.
$WAL Tokenomics
The $WAL TGE (Token Generation Event) and its airdrop are also down for March. However, no fixed date has been set yet. Adeniyi Abiodun called this airdrop one of the largest in crypto history. He’s one of the Sui Network co-founders. So, let’s take a closer look at the $WAL tokenomics.
Its looking like @WalrusProtocol will be one of the largest airdrops in crypto history. And @SuiNetwork community wins big!
— Adeniyi.sui (@EmanAbio) March 4, 2025
When storing data on Walrus, you need to pay with $WAL. This secures a constant demand for the $WAL token. In addition, it offers a payment system that keeps the storage costs stable in fiat terms. As a result, it protects you against $WAL token fluctuation in long-term price action.
You can also stake the $WAL token. This secures the platform. You can delegate your $WAL tokens in due time to Walrus node holders.
The $WAL token is also used for governance. However, this governance lies with the node holders.
A good feature is that the $WAL token is deflationary. It will not only have one but two burning mechanisms. This sounds really promising and is something we like to see in the tokenomics of a project.
The first official listing for the $WAL token is on MEXC. It mentions that spot trading goes live on 27th March.
???? #MEXC New Listing ????
???? Pair: $WAL/ USDT
???? Spot Trading: 2025-03-27 10:00 (UTC)See More Details about $WAL @WalrusProtocol now ???? https://t.co/q2pZftduhm pic.twitter.com/0SdQgcZtt3
— MEXC_Listings (@MEXC_Listings) March 24, 2025
$WAL Token Distribution
So, let’s look at the token distribution. There will be a max supply of 5 billion $WAL tokens. The initial circulating supply will be 1.25 billion tokens, or 25%. The Walrus community receives 60% of this in three ways. See the picture below.
Source: X
- 10% for airdrops. The airdrop allocation is 10%. However, only 4% is part of the initial airdrop. The other 6% is for later airdrops, post mainnet.
- 10% for Subsidies with a 50-month linear unlock.
- 43% for the Community Reserve. This is 690 million tokens which are available at launch. However, there’s a linear unlock, lasting until March 2033.
- 7% for Investors, with unlocks 12 months after launch.
- 30% for Core Contributors. Early contributors and Mysten Labs with various unlock mechanisms.
See the release schedule below.
Source: $WAL tokenomics blog
To summarize, these are exciting times for the Walrus team. After a great funding round, mainnet and the TGE are around the corner.
Disclaimer
The information discussed by Altcoin Buzz is not financial advice. This is for educational, entertainment and informational purposes only. Any information or strategies are thoughts and opinions relevant to accepted levels of risk tolerance of the writer/reviewers, and their risk tolerance may be different from yours.
We are not responsible for any losses that you may incur as a result of any investments directly or indirectly related to the information provided. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are high-risk investments, so please do your due diligence. This article has been sponsored by Walrus.
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Christeen Kucera