Walrus (WAL) Surges 47% as DATA Network Picks It as Default Storage Layer for AI Training Data

Published October 15, 2026, 04:55 UTC. Based on the Sui Foundation and DATA Foundation announcement of October 12, 2026, distributed via Chainwire; trading data from Binance and CoinGecko; and coverage by Unchained and Finbold.

Walrus's WAL token surged about 47% in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko data, after the Sui Foundation and the DATA Foundation announced that the DATA Network is joining the Sui stack with Walrus as its default storage layer. The token traded near $0.058 on October 15, 2026, with 24-hour trading volume topping $48 million on Binance alone, where the WAL/USDT pair gained roughly 43% to move between $0.04048 and $0.06786 in a single day, according to data from Binance's public API.

The DATA Network deal

Under the announcement published October 12, 2026, the DATA Network and its Trace registry are joining the Sui stack. Trace is described in the announcement as an on-chain registry for rights-cleared AI training data with more than 250 million verifiable receipts. Walrus, the decentralized storage protocol with integrity proofs anchored on Sui, becomes the default storage layer for applications operated by the DATA Foundation, while the DATA Network itself will be upgraded to run as a protocol natively on Sui. The announcement says the arrangement gives AI labs a single place to source training data they are allowed to use, with its provenance recorded by Trace and the original files stored and access-controlled on Walrus.

A 20x volume explosion

The rally came with an extreme volume spike: daily trading volume rose more than 2,000% in 24 hours, according to Coinbase market data, with buyers outnumbering sellers roughly two to one across nearly 700 tracked trades. WAL's one-week gain reached roughly 55% and its one-month gain about 100%, according to Coinbase's price history. Even after the spike, the token remains roughly 52% below its all-time high of $0.1543, set on April 16, 2026.

Walrus's circulating supply stands at about 2.62 billion WAL out of a 5 billion maximum, according to Coinbase data, putting the token's market value near $150 million after the rally.

The AI-data narrative

The DATA Network deal slots Walrus into the growing AI-data thesis: the announcement notes that model builders are running out of openly scrapable web data, and that consent-sourced, provenance-recorded data has become a procurement requirement for AI labs under rules such as the EU AI Act. By positioning Walrus as the storage backbone for Trace's more than 250 million receipts, the deal ties WAL's utility directly to that demand, a concrete demand driver for the token rather than a purely speculative re-rating.

This article is news reporting and is not investment advice.

Sources

• Sui Foundation and The DATA Foundation announcement, October 12, 2026, distributed via Chainwire, primary source for the DATA Network joining the Sui stack, the Trace registry's 250 million verifiable receipts, Walrus as the default storage layer for DATA Foundation-operated applications, and the DATA Network's upgrade to run natively on Sui
• Unchained, October 11, 2026, secondary coverage of the DATA Network announcement
• Binance public market data, October 15, 2026, primary source for the WAL/USDT price, 24-hour range and trading volume
• CoinGecko trending data, October 15, 2026, primary source for the 47% 24-hour price change
• Coinbase market data, October 15, 2026, secondary source for the volume spike, the buyer-to-seller ratio, the weekly and monthly gains, the all-time high, and the circulating supply