The most valuable Sui airdrop? Comprehensive value prediction of WAL token

Author: Alex Liu, Foresight News

WAL Token Airdrop

Recently, the new protocol of Sui developer Mysten Labs ------ the decentralized storage and data availability protocol Walrus conducted a token airdrop in the form of distributing NFTs. Eligible community members' Sui wallet addresses have received soulbound (non-transferable) Walrus Airdrop NFTs, which display the number of WAL tokens, thus granting them the right to claim the corresponding number of WAL tokens when the mainnet goes live in March.

This airdrop distributed 4% of the total supply of 5 billion WAL tokens, while another 6% is reserved for future community incentives and ecological distribution. For an introduction to the Walrus protocol, it is recommended to read the author's article from last September: Interpreting Walrus, Sui's New Decentralized Storage Solution produced by the Sui development team, independent PoS chain, new governance token WAL, potential airdrop opportunities.

According to statistics, about 120,000 Sui addresses received the WAL airdrop, with 80% of the addresses holding fewer than 1,000 tokens. There are 142 addresses with more than 80,000 tokens, and only one address received the maximum airdrop of 100,000 tokens. The eligibility requirements for the airdrop involved interactions with the Walrus testnet, native staking of SUI tokens, active DeFi on the Sui chain, NFT users, Galaxy activity users, and meme contests held by Walrus, among others.

The author's main Sui address received over 90,000 tokens, ranking in the top 100 among all Sui addresses, barely maintaining the persona of "deeply involved in the Sui ecosystem."

WAL Token Address Distribution Statistics

Market Cap Comparison: From FIL, AR to Mysten Labs Ecosystem

In the field of storage protocols, Filecoin (FIL) and Arweave (AR) have already achieved impressive market capitalizations. FIL has built a vast ecosystem for data storage and retrieval, while AR has gained market favor with its permanent storage solution.

Currently, FIL has a market cap of about $2 billion, with a fully diluted valuation (FDV) of approximately $6 billion, while AR has a market cap and FDV of about $600 million. If we benchmark against FIL's fully diluted valuation, WAL's price could potentially exceed $1; whereas if we benchmark against AR, WAL's price would be around $0.1. The disparity between the two is quite significant; which project is closer to Walrus's potential price?

Although Walrus has just started, it has strong support from Sui developer Mysten Labs, and we can look for clues in the token performance of other projects by Mysten Labs.

NS is a domain protocol on Sui, and its FDV reached $300 million on the day of launch. DEEP is a liquidity protocol on Sui, and its FDV was only $200 million at launch, but it subsequently surged violently, with FDV peaking near $3.5 billion, and after a pullback, it currently maintains around $1.5 billion.

From the author's observation, Mysten Labs' support for Walrus appears to exceed that for SuiNS and Deepbook, as their official Twitter account lists Sui and Walrus side by side in the account profile, along with the co-founders, CEO, and CPO. Based on this, it is speculated that WAL's market cap is unlikely to be lower than DEEP, which has not received this treatment, meaning WAL's price will likely be above $0.3.

Editor's Fantasy Time

Walrus is not only a decentralized storage protocol but also a data availability (DA) protocol. If we benchmark against the star product in this field, Celestia's token TIA, the WAL token price could exceed $0.7. The most optimistic members of the Sui community have even stated, "Walrus = Filecoin + Celestia." If this model holds, WAL's price is expected to reach above $2 ------ the editor could directly rely on the airdrop to avoid working for several years. One can only hope that this dream comes true.

Valuation Conclusion and Outlook

By comparing high-market-cap storage projects like FIL and AR, and considering the additional premium brought by Mysten Labs' strong support and the current market environment, the reasonable price for the WAL token may be between $0.3 and $0.6 USDT. If the opening airdrop faces significant selling pressure and drops below $0.2 USDT, the author will consider buying; if the market is extremely optimistic and exceeds $0.8 USDT, the author will sell most of the tokens.

The pre-market price of WAL on Sui's PinataBot is about $0.3, with shallow market liquidity; the price is for reference only.