Walrus Protocol relies heavily on the Seal protocol—any data uploaded is locked into a mathematical safe, only accessible under specific conditions. Sounds very secure, right?

But have you ever thought about the true cost of this "encrypted storage"?

In the cryptography community, there's a well-known concept called "Harvest Now, Decrypt Later"—intelligence agencies and hacker organizations intercept and store all unbreakable encrypted data in advance, waiting quietly. Waiting for what? For breakthroughs in computing power, such as the advent of quantum computers. When that happens, today's encryption barriers could be as flimsy as paper.

This may seem distant, but for Walrus Protocol, it's a big problem. Long-term storage of massive encrypted data on the traditional internet is costly and prone to loss, but Walrus? Ironically, it provides attackers with a perfect solution: a cheap, stable, and never-losing "encrypted data repository."

The confidential document you upload to Walrus today is encrypted with algorithms like RSA-2048 or elliptic curve encryption, following the 2026 standards. The protocol promises these data will be stored online for years or even decades. But Moore's Law and advances in quantum computing won't stop.

If someday the current encryption standards are cracked, all this "permanent storage" data will be like a backup made ten years ago for future eavesdroppers. That's the real cause for concern.