Honestly, there's an unkind but truthful saying in the industry: as network expansion progresses, what gets amplified first is often not TPS or ecosystem size, but the concentration of power. Nodes are growing larger, staking is becoming more centralized, and influence is drifting away—what appears to be a decentralized network actually resembles a coalition of a few giants—you think you're participating in public infrastructure, but in reality, you're contributing to the order of a select few.

Walrus directly exposes this misconception in an official article on January 8, 2026: decentralization does not maintain itself naturally; the larger the scale, the more active design is needed to resist centralization forces. What sets this article apart is that it doesn't just shout slogans but genuinely dissects the specific mechanisms of "how to resist."

The logic is straightforward: expansion leads to larger nodes and centralized staking? Then, detach power from size and channel it through delegated selection. Large nodes easily win by reputation? Then, link rewards to verifiable performance. Someone might temporarily band together at critical moments to seize control? Increase the cost of quick migration and staking. Governance parameters become a game of strategy? Then, let token holders jointly decide, preventing a few from dominating.

Although this design sounds complex, the underlying idea is actually—since centralization tendency is a "byproduct" of expansion, use mechanism design to actively counteract it.