Many people discussing the Walrus protocol focus on how to write data, but a more critical issue has been overlooked—how to securely read data in adversarial environments. WAL's read design is quite interesting, as it divides verification into multiple layers. First, it fetches metadata and verifies the commitment value, then it retrieves secondary slivers as needed for validation. Once enough (2f+1) pieces are collected, the original data can be reconstructed. After reconstruction, the data is re-encoded and compared with the on-chain commitment; only if the verification passes is the result output. This process also includes a self-healing mechanism—missing shards can be gradually recovered, and proofs are included when restoring primary data. The entire process has relatively low communication overhead, with read and write costs being comparable, ultimately ensuring data integrity, storage validity, and read consistency. To address asynchronous issues and malicious nodes in real-world networks, this verification-before-reconciliation approach is much more reliable than directly fetching data.
View Original
This page may contain third-party content, which is provided for information purposes only (not representations/warranties) and should not be considered as an endorsement of its views by Gate, nor as financial or professional advice. See Disclaimer for details.
5 Likes
Reward
5
3
Repost
Share
Comment
0/400
DeadTrades_Walking
· 01-07 18:57
Oh, this is the key point. Writing is easy, reading is hard. How many people have got this reversed?
View OriginalReply0
SchroedingersFrontrun
· 01-07 18:57
This verification logic is indeed clever, but isn't the 2f+1 threshold still a bit too lenient?
View OriginalReply0
BearMarketBro
· 01-07 18:36
This reading mechanism is indeed powerful. The combination of 2f+1 validation and on-chain verification essentially eliminates the possibility of malicious behavior.
Many people discussing the Walrus protocol focus on how to write data, but a more critical issue has been overlooked—how to securely read data in adversarial environments. WAL's read design is quite interesting, as it divides verification into multiple layers. First, it fetches metadata and verifies the commitment value, then it retrieves secondary slivers as needed for validation. Once enough (2f+1) pieces are collected, the original data can be reconstructed. After reconstruction, the data is re-encoded and compared with the on-chain commitment; only if the verification passes is the result output. This process also includes a self-healing mechanism—missing shards can be gradually recovered, and proofs are included when restoring primary data. The entire process has relatively low communication overhead, with read and write costs being comparable, ultimately ensuring data integrity, storage validity, and read consistency. To address asynchronous issues and malicious nodes in real-world networks, this verification-before-reconciliation approach is much more reliable than directly fetching data.