The other fundamental component of DUSK is confidential smart contracts.
These were the first to be introduced before real world assets became a trend in crypto. Even with these contracts, business logic may be executed privately, and the states of the contract are not visible, and results can be checked without any disclosure of data.
This is important since in the normal course of finance real financial contracts are never publicly represented. This is not a feature that Dusk introduced later it was a philosophical decision during the design of the design.
Dusk was never built to chase hype or compete with every new blockchain trend. From the very beginning, its focus has been clear and intentional: building financial infrastructure that protects privacy while still working within regulations. Everything DUSK does connects back to this idea. It’s not about racing other Layer-1s, pushing DeFi farming stories, meme culture, or showing off speed numbers. DUSK exists to support real financial assets, institutions, and a form of privacy that makes sense in regulated, real-world finance.
The Walrus protocol involves a native utility token known as WAL and it is used for staking and paying storage fees. Also, it incentivizes node operations. WAL could become a driver of network participation.
Key Achievement
Walrus also completed a 140 million funding round back by major investors like A16z and Standard Crypto. The Walrus Foundation runs an RFP, Request for Proposals, program that funds ecosystem developers and builders that encourages innovative tools, and integration on top of Walrus
Walrus tokenomics matter because the market cap sits around 5 billion with over 60 percent that is aimed just for the community while the community reserves unlock stretches to 2033
The subsidies drips for years just to keep the nodes paid as the fees grow. The most important thing is their circulating supply is already above 1.25 billion at the start. Their first investor unlock came just after 12 months of the mainnet. This does not only make $WAL feel like a quick trade, but it's like a friendly budget that you have to respect just for now.
Let's see Walrus's performance and cost advantage over other decentralised storage solutions.
So comparing it with other decentralized storage solutions like Filecoin and Arweave, Walrus achieved significantly lower costs. It charges 80% less than Filecoin and 100x less than Arweave. This positions Walrus to the top in its rival market even in traditional centralized cloud storage economics.