2026-01-15 19:20:41

Looking at Walrus's recent popularity, many people are praising how it has truly achieved decentralization—turning data into Sui native Blob objects, where users can verify the content's authenticity by on-chain hashes without trusting any gateway. Sounds impressive. But I dug deeper into the protocol architecture and found something a bit uncomfortable.

On the surface, it’s decentralized, but in reality, the control layer remains highly centralized. How so? Walrus nodes are all bootstrapped through a list of bootstrap nodes in an official SDK, all maintained by Mysten Labs. New nodes must connect through these bootstrap nodes to join the network, and shard routing is also affected. Although the protocol itself is open source, ordinary users have no easy way to replace this bootstrap layer—this is essentially like the DNS root servers in Web2.

What’s even more troubling is that protocol upgrades are entirely decided unilaterally by Mysten Labs. Core parameters like Red Stuff encoding, FROST fee rates, Blob lifecycle rules—community has no say at all. The WAL token is basically a payment tool, with no voting rights. This means if Mysten Labs wants to introduce content censorship blacklists or enforce metadata indexing someday, the community can’t stop it.

Compare this with other projects: IPFS has the InterPlanetary Consensus working group to promote standardization, Filecoin has a complete FIP process, and Arweave is building the AO governance system. And Walrus? It’s a classic "company-led open source project" model.

So, the current state of Walrus is: the data layer is decentralized, but the control layer remains highly centralized. Mysten Labs is not just the developer but also acts as the gatekeeper of network topology and rule evolution. This "technological decentralization, governance centralization" architecture might work well in peacetime, but once faced with geopolitical pressure or regulatory risks, it becomes a single point of failure. True resilience depends on institutional decentralization; relying solely on cryptographic redundancy is far from enough.

WAL-3,14%

FIL-6,18%

AR-4,52%

AO-1,65%

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AlwaysAnon

· 4h ago

Another "decentralized" shell, with a centralized heart—Mysten is really impressive. --- I've seen the bottleneck in bootstrap nodes a long time ago; there's basically no way to move it. --- To put it simply, Mysten makes the decisions, the community is just a spectator, and WAL tokens are just workers. --- They directly compare themselves to IPFS and Filecoin, creating a direct gap—this is the Web3 version of "we are open source" companies. --- Single point of failure risks have always existed. When regulatory pressure hits, it’s really troublesome, and everything could be over. --- Technical decentralization and governance centralization sound very awkward; the long-term risks are still significant. --- I just want to know why the community still praises it so much. Such architectural flaws are way too obvious.

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RadioShackKnight

· 4h ago

Another scam where the left hand promotes decentralization and the right hand promotes centralization. The bootstrap nodes approach is truly remarkable—it's just DNS dictatorship in different clothing.

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MetaMisfit

· 4h ago

It's that same old routine of "I've decentralized it, rest assured," with bootstrap nodes and all that—it's basically begging me to say it outright. Mysten Labs' recent moves are truly just Web2 stuff disguised as decentralization, and the fact that WAL tokens don't have voting rights is really the kicker; the community is just a backdrop.

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PhantomHunter

· 4h ago

Another centralized project wrapped in pretty words, the bootstrap nodes approach is a well-known topic in Web3. --- Mysten Labs's approach is actually quite clever—making decentralization visible while hiding centralization out of sight. --- In simple terms, it's an internet company with a different skin; governance rights are still in their own hands. --- The fact that WAL has no voting rights is truly brilliant—issuing tokens purely for pump-and-dump schemes. --- The analogy of DNS root servers is very fitting; once regulation comes, they are directly cut off. --- It feels like all new projects are repeating the same patterns—technologically aggressive but governance is conservative. --- Looking at the FIP process for Filecoin, the difference is clear—this is the distinction between open-source big companies and true decentralization.

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ruggedSoBadLMAO

· 4h ago

Haha, really, all the guiding nodes are Mysten Labs' own. Isn't this just centralized control with a different shell? --- WAL has no voting rights? Then it's just a pure payment token, what's the difference from a stablecoin? --- Decentralized data layer + centralized control layer, this combo skill is amazing. --- Feels like Mysten Labs is playing "my democracy, your dictatorship" here. --- Compared to IPFS's FIP process, Walrus's approach really seems a bit amateurish. --- Single point of failure is a really painful point; once regulators come, everything collapses. --- What's the use of open-sourcing the protocol? You can't change the guiding layer at all—typical fake open source. --- So Web3 projects should either go truly decentralized or not bother with this facade. At least that would be more honest. --- Mysten Labs: I am both the architect and the gatekeeper, perfect.

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