Shi Jing ping

In this world of cryptocurrency, where innovation is often overshadowed by hype cycles, projects like Plasma (XPL) are silently building up the foundational infrastructure for what could very well be the next generation in digital finance. While most people talk about speculative assets, Plasma is busy building the "global payment rails": a robust, efficient, and, above all, zero-fee network aimed at facilitating the transactions of stablecoins to integrate real-world utility. If stablecoins are indeed to represent the future of digital money, the technology that will allow seamless movement thereof is really key, and Plasma is positioning itself as a leader in this critical domain.

What makes Plasma so revolutionary is its radical approach towards transaction costs. The infamous "gas fee" has been a hindrance for most blockchains aiming for widespread adoption. Transferring even a small quantity of funds in their respective stablecoins has always meant incurring outrageously high costs for transactions. The problem is tackled head-on for users in a very innovative manner by the Plasma protocol’s Paymaster service. What could be more astounding than being able to send your digital dollars instantly and for free across the globe? That you never need a gas token holdings and never worry about calculating costs for a transaction again.
Apart from the fee-less stablecoin transactions, the strategic plan of Plasma has a very ambitious plan for a truly interconnected digital economy. One of the main aspects of this plan is the soon-to-be-activated Bitcoin Bridge or pBTC. Bitcoin, being the most liquid and trusted asset class in the crypto market, is the foundation of the entire market. pBTC’s main objective is to bring a huge amount of capital and utility into the Plasma DeFi system. This is because pBTC is going to enable the seamless transfer of Bitcoin into the Plasma system. This allows the bitcoin market participants to gain access to yield-generating assets and lending protocols and other advanced financial services on the Plasma system without having to cash them out to other assets. This makes Plasma a payment network and a DeFi hub that is capable of attracting a lot of other digital assets in the crypto space.
Technically, Plasma is based on Reth, a second-generation EVM-compatible execution layer that ensures super-fast transaction processing times, the highest level of security, and seamless compatibility with the ocean of pre-existing Ethereum tools, wallets, and decentralized applications. Developers can easily port their dApps to Plasma or build new ones, leveraging familiar programming languages and environments. This EVM compatibility significantly lowers the barrier to entry for developers, fostering a vibrant ecosystem of dApps and services that can take advantage of Plasma's unique features-particularly its zero-fee model.
"It’s not really the specifications of Plasma that matter but what we can really do with it." True potential for Plasma exists not only on the technical level but is all about adoption. In fact, "the Plasma One card and the associated merchant-friendly APIs represent a step towards connecting the world of digital assets with physical commerce." For instance, the Plasma One card is meant to facilitate a seamless process of using digital assets for purchases in the physical world. Hence, cryptocurrencies could be easily converted into a means for daily necessities such as vegetables or a cup of coffee. At the same time, from the business perspective, the merchant APIs make it easier for businesses to adopt stable payments. This not only increases global transactions but also enhances speed with reduced processing costs."
From the tokenomics standpoint, XPL is the utility token on the Plasma network. XPL is important for the security and advanced features of the Plasma network. Additionally, XPL allows members to stake and validate the Plasma network. In addition to the above, XPL is used for specialized smart contract fees. Moreover, XPL is incorporated into the network’s economic model. The value of XPL is directly related to the utility that the Plasma network offers. XPL is a great utility token for people who believe that the future of digital payment fees is free.
In concluding, Plasma (XPL) is indeed an intriguing and somewhat overlooked player in the world of blockchain. By focusing on the foundational infrastructure aspects and tackling the pressing problem of transaction costs, and thereby synergistically incorporating the essential asset of Bitcoin, Plasma is not only developing another cryptocurrency; it is developing the building blocks for the essential worldwide payments infrastructure for the efficient and equitable digital economy. As stablecoins forge ahead in their journey towards becoming the universally preferred unit of exchange for all digital transactions across the world, the likes of Plasma are all set to play a seminal role in determining the financial future that will soon unfurl.
@Plasma

​Early 2026: The simmering tensions between the United States of America and the Iran government reach a point of critical flashpoint, causing shockwaves throughout the global financial markets. For the cryptocurrency markets, this situation has ceased to be a hypothetical "black swan syndrome." Instead, it serves as a real-time "stress test" for cryptocurrencies, whether speculative or safe-haven instruments.
In the following analysis, the dual nature of the crypto market’s response to the growing crisis between the U.S. and Iran is examined.
1. “Flash Crash” in Bitcoin: Risk Asset or Best In-Class Performer
When these military escalations are first rumored, the first reaction in the cryptocurrency market is a sell-off. In the most recent military escalation in January of the year 2026, the intraday price fluctuations in the Bitcoin cryptocurrency caused the loss of billions of positions.
Liquidation Tsunami: Historical events such as the strike in June 2025 and the heightened tensions of 2026 prove that a geopolitical event unleashes a tsunami of liquidations. On January 14th, 2026, a massive liquidation of bear put options exceeding $500 million occurred.
Panic Selling: Institutional as well as retail investors tend to run to cash (USD) or more conservative safe havens during the early stages of a conflict, as they do not wish to be exposed to the risks associated with “risk assets.” This normally causes a 5-10% drop in Ethereum and Solana.
2. The "Digital Gold" Pivot: Bitcoin as a Safe Haven
“Once the first waves of panic have passed, a secondary trend may begin to emerge. This involves the decoupling of Bitcoin markets and the general stock market.”
Flight to Sovereignty: Unlike traditional fiat, the Bitcoin system is not anchored to the central bank of Iran or possibly any other central bank around the world.
During the blackouts and protests in Iran, data evidenced an increase in the withdrawal of Bitcoins to individual wallets.
Hedge Against Inflation: As tensions mount and the price for oil climbs due to possible war efforts with WTI crude prices ranging around $60-65 per barrel, investors are nervous about inflation making a comeback. Historically, this has been perceived as supporting the ‘store of value’ use case for Bitcoin, having surged back to around $97,000 in mid-January 2026.
3. On-Chain Activity: A Conflict Barometer
It is the first major conflict to highlight how blockchain data can act as a "real-time pulse" of geopolitical events.
The "Trump Factor" and Market Sentiment
The return of the Trump administration in 2025/2026 brings a "Maximum Pressure" policy that markets are still learning to price in.

​Market Desensitization: A few analysts believe that markets are getting "conditioned" to geopolitical rhetoric. Unless there is a direct disruption to the Strait of Hormuz-affecting 20% of the world's oil-the crypto market has shown a remarkable ability to "buy the dip" and recover within days of a headline.
Regulatory Moves: Interestingly, while the U.S. remains hawkish on Iran, it has become more "pro-crypto" domestically. This is a paradox in which geopolitical war-mongering may hurt short-term prices, but pro-crypto U.S. policy provides a long-term floor for the market.
Conclusion: A Bifurcated
“The conflict between the U.S. and Iran illustrates that the cryptocurrency market is anything but a monolith. For a hedge fund operating in New York, Bitcoin is a risk asset that must be sold at the earliest hint of war. For a resident of Tehran or a speculator tracking worldwide inflation trends, it’s a lifeline,” he said.
As we further enter 2026, it is a certainty that the "war premium" surrounding crypto prices will be high and that Bitcoin will further incorporate itself into a "macro asset" and respond in a similar manner to drone strikes as it does when it is influenced by interest rate changes.
$BTC
$XAU
$XAG

One reason why Walrus is so significant is that cryptocurrency continues to create more records of information than current Blockchains are capable of handling, so we need a repository or storage solution that allows us to safely store all this information for the traders. Traders look at the storage portion of the technology as an "Infrastructure Play; however, Walrus is more than just a generic Storage Network. It is a platform developed to handle large sets of information, including files, multimedia, AI datasets, and even Application State. Walrus is also designed to allow the aforementioned types of data to become verified, priced, and consumed/utilized within OnChain Applications instead of simply storing the data "somewhere" or losing it forever. The choices we made when designing Walrus may seem to be more technical in focus; however, they have a major impact on how far our overall Ecosystem will be able to grow without forcing every single Blockchain to become a very costly hard drive.
Initially, Walrus was a project developed by Mysten Labs, with the team being closely associated with the early development of Sui. Now, however, they are operating independently from Mysten Labs and have developed a new token, WAL, and have established their own foundation. This independence is important because traders often do not realize how much of a difference it makes for these incentives. When a network becomes an entity in and of itself, it has the ability to attract those who want to be involved as the network expands. In addition to node operators and builders, companies who want to have a storage layer that is not controlled by one company's development plan will have the opportunity and incentive to develop relationships with the Walrus Network. The Walrus Network has clearly defined plans within their white paper regarding the delegation of proof-of-stake and that WAL will be the main currency used for governance and operating the Walrus Network through its storage nodes.
To better understand what Walrus does differently than the original version, we can look at Walrus as an alternative approach to the frequent practice of replication (i.e. creating multiple identical copies of a file on separate servers). Traditional decentralized storage (including BlockChain) relies heavily on the practice of creating duplicate copies to provide fault tolerance, however, replication has both the benefit of being simple to do but it can also incur a lot of costs to store.
Erasure coding is a method that Walrus is using that was designed specifically for larger blobs (or larger files) so that Walrus can take one large file and "erase" middle sections of it and store it on 9 or 10 nodes, and still be able to recover it even if 1 or 2 of those nodes go down.
In the whitepaper, one of the proposals is aimed at maximizing storage resiliency while minimizing storage overhead (as compared to replication). The cost of storage economics is the main reason why the most successful storage networks are able to achieve widespread use versus just remaining niche.
For investors and traders alike, the main emphasis will be on the fact that “Will the demand for the Token be driven by the technology?” and “Does the Technology create a utility for the Token in actual use?” The WAL Token (WAL) has been created to provide an economic benefit to the Protocol in that WAL is being used not only by users for storage payments but also by stakeholders for incentivization to operate the storage nodes, stake and contribute to governance of the Network. According to the Protocol's own Token Utility page, WAL will also serve as an incentive to users and represent the true economic value of the Protocol. In layman's terms, if Walrus gains traction as a true-use Platform, WAL will be incorporated into the Flow of Value: Users will PAY to store and retrieve, Node Operators will receive REWARDS, and STAKERS will help to maintain and secure the Network from attack. The key "long-term" opportunity is that Walrus will not merely be about launching a Token but rather building a sustainable Market for Data Storage and Data Retrieval.
The Walrus has become very popular with traders, in part because of the timing and because Walrus provides a necessary real-world solution to the exploding amounts of data from AI, media, applications, and on-chain that want to create better user experiences. Walrus defines itself as a place where "data can be both trustworthy, useful, and able to be governed," thereby projecting confidence in the way future apps will treat the ownership and ability to verify data, not just as an afterthought. Additionally, the Sui platform is also suitable for the Walrus because it offers high-throughput and low-latency solutions for storing data that can create a more cost-effective and efficient network of data storage at a larger scale.
The Mainnet is important for other reasons too; it represents when the theoretical market ends. Walrus' Public Mainnet Launch was announced March 27, 2025, with an emphasis on "Programmable Storage" (the ability to interact directly with Stored Data rather than just a dump location). The next test for an Infrastructure Token is on its treatment after mainnet launch; how did it continue growing with activity? Did your developers actually build out long-term utility/use for the Token? Walrus also cited testnet wipes occurring at various intervals as normal and healthy events for rapidly evolving infrastructure projects. The conclusion for developers who want to find stability should build off of mainnet.
Walrus has caught the eye of investors by completing a major token sale for over $140 million, sending out press releases for its token sale ahead of mainnet launch indicating it has attracted a number of serious investors, which would signal ample resources to develop its ecosystem. At the same time, there have also been a number of questions surrounding the typical pressures placed on investors regarding when their tokens will be available and the manner in which those tokens will be distributed. Serious traders should not concentrate solely on the "headline" of this token sale but also keep close tabs on the "schedules" associated with token unlocks, as well as the potential emissions associated with each time period. As with many storage networks, rewards attract more nodes than actually needed - as such, there is a continual influx of new nodes, but unlock-related selling will cap the token's performance until organic demand is sufficient to support further growth.
Walrus is important because the crypto industry generates more data than all blockchains combined can handle, so data must therefore exist in a "trustworthy" place. Many traders view storage solutions as infrastructure play, but Walrus is not just another generic storage solution. It was built as a solution to manage large amounts of data - not just a "generic" data storage network; it specifically addresses file/media/AI-related data and application states and allows developers to utilize that data as verified and priced components of their on-chain applications rather than as something that is simply parked in one place and then ignored. Although it may sound like a technical design decision, this unique development will create many opportunities for larger ecosystems to grow and develop without all blockchains having to become incredibly expensive hard drives.
Mysten Labs introduced Walrus as a project, which was then developed further into a geographically-diverse, independent decentralized network with its own token, WAL, and its foundation. This matters, as traders tend to assume that the level of "independence" of the network will play a major role in influencing incentives. Once a network has become independent and has its own identity, it will be much more attractive to Node Operators, Builders, and Partners who desire a storage layer that is not reliant on one company's designated strategy. The official white paper has announced.
I have a pretty simple view on the Walrus project: it will seem pretty boring day to day until someone understands how to leverage Walrus' win in building infrastructure for the future.
Think of the Storage primitive, while it is not particularly glamorous today, if eventually accepted as the standard default primitive by all building projects, Walrus will very quickly become a fundamental requirement of its ecosystem.
In my opinion future success of Walrus will depend on whether Walrus achieves "normal" status for the future and building infrastructures of its ecosystem and whether the design of Walrus' tokens stays harmonized with and reflects the value of actual usage, versus creating short-term economic incentives for large amounts of buyers.
If Walrus achieves its goals, it will not happen because of storytelling, it will happen when Walrus serves as the anchor for future developments of infrastructure and when the users on Walrus continue paying for storage without a second thought.
When these conditions are met, that is when the gravity of infrastructure will truly deliver what developers and users desire.
@Walrus 🦭/acc #walrus $WAL

My understanding of the importance of "Walrus" didn't come through a chat about its price or some long thread about the market, but rather was born out of a simple yet universal challenge faced by anyone building an AI application or creating their own NFT: How do you protect the data (files/images, etc.) in the event that someone takes control of them all of a sudden and no longer allows you access to your files? As simple as it might sound, Walrus is already being used in the AI and NFT space simultaneously for just this reason. Walrus is a decentralized way to store large unstructured files (such as audio, video, PDFs, images, etc.) and is using Sui as a co-ordination layer that is used to manage how their storage network operates. The intention of the project is to provide reliable, valuable and governable access to the data in the world, as opposed to simply having the data hosted somewhere.
Both traders and investors are asking the same question about the sudden importance of storage. The reason is that both AI & NFTs are very data-heavy and can be easily damaged if not stored on-chain or behind a centralized entity. With NFTs, we typically think of the "NFT" being the artwork itself; however, in many cases, the actual artwork is stored off-site and referenced via a unique id in the NFT. Therefore, if those files or storage were to disappear or change, it would effectively render the NFT useless. In the case of AI, data sets, model files, logs, and agent memory are also all very large files, and there aren't realistic ways to store them on a standard blockchain. Walrus proposes to provide a layer where such data can be stored, while still enabling the verification of what was stored on-chain and when it was stored on-chain.

The Walrus project embodies an additional aspect of current AI evolution; the establishment of data markets. As AI making models and agents reliant on continually acquiring new datasets, those that prove Quality, Provenance, and Availability of data will become critical to AIs. Walrus has positioned itself as a foundational platform for monetizing and verifying data, as well as following the current trend of utilizing Auditable vs "Just Trust Me" types of data inputs into AIs.
In addition, while the NFT community has clearer immediate interest in a functioning NFT Ecosystem because of the need for fast access to Media and Metadata at scale, it will also require Walrus to fulfil storage needs for a range of products to include Stickers, GIFs, In-Game Assets, and other evolving forms of NFT collections. There's a long list of notable NFT businesses utilising Walrus for the storage of large Digital Content Libraries, on the basis that these collections are designed to contain such a high volume of heavy media; i.e. if you've ever attempted to load an NFT collection whose half photos timed out or whose metadata has become corrupted, you know how fast trust erodes.
A good real-world example that illustrates the point without the "marketing" spin is that if you have a small indie game company with 10,000 character NFTs. Each character has many different skins, animations, audio, etc. With time, the expectation of players is to have fresh content regularly and with seasonal updates. The players may also expect more from their experience, for instance, AI-generated alternate versions of the characters.
The company could host the media file on a standard cloud service, however, that brings an additional layer of risk because if hosting costs increase, if the company gets bought out, or if cloud policies change, the NFT assets could be limited, deleted, or replaced.
By using an infrastructure solution such as Walrus, the company transforms its "trust us to always monitor and pay for hosting fees" to "our assets are residing on a network built to ensure permanence and verifiability." Storing files via this method does not eliminate every risk; but it changes the failure mode; therefore, this is an important aspect that should be taken into account by each investor.
The second half of the story relates to Artificial Intelligence (AI). This is not just a theory. Partnerships have chosen Walrus to be the storage layer for partnerships that require their agents to utilize large binary files within their workflows. In other words, the agents cannot be effective unless they fully take advantage of all the memory, data, and artifacts they have access to.

The continued discussion of Walrus in relation to NFTs and AI is primarily due to the fact that Walrus is developing an economic framework with per-use pricing, incentives, and community alignment as the basis of its system and that the WAL token is being deliberately distributed across multiple mechanisms (60%+ through airdrops, subsidies, and reserves meant for community use) with a focus on distributing WAL to individuals who will be active members of the community. This method of token distribution may not necessarily guarantee success; however, it will directly impact how members of the ecosystem participate within the Walrus community and may lure more builders into creating applications and tools that support Walrus rather than simply investing. Additionally, the airdrop mechanism associated with the soulbound NFT functioned as the initial introduction for Walrus into NFT culture. Regardless of people's opinion on airdropping, employing an NFT as a qualification for receiving WAL provides an example of how membership-driven engagement in an NFT environment creates closer ties between the participants; thus, small factors such as this contribute to the form and development of communities, which will ultimately have a significant impact on the ability for networks to successfully achieve initial network effects.
The scale metrics Walrus has released publicly since launching its mainnet in March 2025 detail that it stores hundreds of terabytes of data with millions of blobs. Investors view adopted signals like these as more important when assessing the value of storage networks than as a means to create earnings on a quarterly basis. Storage networks become considered an asset when a user saves critical information using them repeatedly.
Some risks of decentralized storage have been noted. Decentralized storage is a business area that is very competitive. User loyalty is not guaranteed for users of decentralized storage. Increases in costs, unacceptable performance levels, or difficulties associated with building developer toolkits that work well together could result in builders choosing to find alternatives. In addition to the risks associated with any competitive industry, there is a concentration risk due to heavy reliance on the ecosystem as a whole. Walrus is part of the Sui stack, which can be a strength for Walrus but also is a significant limitation. How quickly the Sui stack expands can impact the future growth of Walrus. An additional point to consider in determining the future demand for decentralized storage as compared to the level of growth in the AI market is whether companies will still want to store the most sensitive information on-site or utilize blockchains for selected types of information.
The Walrus project has gained positive attention in both the AI and NFT communities because it solves an issue these communities are facing in common. Using the Web3 builder’s perspective on ownership, permanence, and verification, Walrus offers a solution that is true to the Web3 community. If you’re considering Walrus as a trader/investor, rather than viewing it as a meme or a pure infrastructure investment, try to think of it as a wager on the future of AI agents and digital media economies. If these types of economies move toward a storage layer for their data that is not merely stored, but actually verified by third parties, then the storage layer will not just be a background element anymore; it will become one of the key factors on which to place your trust.
@Walrus 🦭/acc #walrus $WAL