Sui Overview: Technical Features and Current Status of Ecological Development

Author: stella@footprint.network

The launch of the Sui blockchain marks a further innovation in blockchain technology. Developed by Mysten Labs, its team members have outstanding professional achievements from Meta. Sui is a permissionless Layer 1 that garnered widespread attention from the crypto community even before its mainnet launch.

This article will explore the technical features and ecological development status of Sui, examining how it stands out in the ever-evolving blockchain industry and attracts significant attention.

Introduction to Sui

The Sui blockchain is an innovative Layer 1 platform dedicated to providing developers and users with a seamless on-chain experience. The chain focuses on promoting the diverse development of dApps, boasting not only excellent performance and fast transaction processing speeds but also significant cost-effectiveness.

Sui's uniqueness among similar platforms lies in its strong commitment to instant transactions, significantly reducing the latency of smart contract execution. Compared to other Layer 1s, Sui demonstrates outstanding transaction processing capabilities.

• Team

Mysten Labs, founded by former Meta (formerly Facebook) experts, is driving the development of the Sui chain. Core team members have participated in Meta's Novi wallet and Diem stablecoin projects. They leverage their deep expertise in the blockchain field to innovate in the Web3 space.

• Funding

On September 8, 2022, Mysten Labs completed its latest funding round, successfully raising $300 million, with a valuation of $2 billion. In addition to being led by FTX Ventures, this round of funding also received support from industry giants such as Binance Labs, Coinbase Ventures, Circle Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Andreessen Horowitz (a16z).

• Development History

Mysten Labs launched its Layer 1 Sui blockchain in March 2022, equipped with a public software development kit (SDK). By May 2022, the company had completed the design of Sui's token economic model. The Sui testnet went live in August 2022, followed by three waves of testnet activities, accompanied by incentives to test the network's performance. The first wave of testing began in November 2022, primarily targeting node operators and independent validators' functionalities. The second wave of testing took place in January 2023, focusing on Sui's token economics. The third wave of testing started in February 2023, further stress-testing the network. These orderly testing arrangements laid a strong foundation for Sui's mainnet launch in May 2023. By the end of November, Sui's TVL reached $150 million, with over 1.95 billion transactions.

• Token

The design of Sui's token economic system aligns with its technical blueprint, built around five core pillars: SUI token, transaction fees, Sui storage fund, proof-of-stake mechanism (PoS), and on-chain governance voting. The total supply of SUI tokens is set at 10 billion. As of November 30, the token's price was $0.62, with a market cap of approximately $580 million.

Advantages of Sui

Sui excels in technological innovation and places great importance on interoperability.

• First, Sui employs the native programming language Move. Move is a programming language tailored for the Sui chain, designed to ensure the security and efficiency of smart contract development. Originating from the Diem project, Move's powerful asset handling capabilities and access control mechanisms greatly simplify the management of digital assets and transactions while prioritizing security.

• Second, Sui possesses excellent horizontal scalability, allowing it to adapt in real-time to changes in network demand, enabling validators to adjust computing resources as needed. This ensures that even during peak network times, transaction costs remain low and stable, while incentivizing validators to allocate their network resources efficiently. Additionally, Sui's scalable on-chain storage capabilities allow for the creation of complex on-chain assets without relying on off-chain solutions, significantly simplifying blockchain asset management.

• Furthermore, Sui can process non-sequential actions (such as asset transfers and NFT minting) in parallel, enhancing transaction processing efficiency. Unlike traditional blockchains that require global consensus, Sui's "Byzantine Fault Tolerance Consensus" promotes high transaction throughput and low latency. This not only enables scalable transaction processing but also ensures near-instant transaction confirmations and robust security. As of November 30, Sui has completed an astonishing 1.96 billion transactions. In July, due to the popularity of Sui 8192 game, Sui's daily transaction volume surged to 22.96 million. Although the peak period has passed, Sui's performance remains strong, with an average daily transaction volume stabilizing at 2.69 million in November.

Data Source: Daily Transactions on Sui

Sui Ecosystem

According to data from the Sui official website, as of the end of November, the Sui ecosystem has nurtured 85 different projects. These projects span multiple fields, including:

• Games: Sui 8192, Arcade Champion, Run Legends.
• DEX: Cetus, KriyaDEX, FlowX Finance.
• Lending: Scallop Lend, Navi Protocol, OmniBTC.

Among these projects, Sui 8192 has received widespread attention due to its high user engagement and transaction volume. Sui 8192 is a fully on-chain, open-source, and challenging game inspired by the classic game 2048, developed by the Ethos team on Sui. The gameplay is quite intuitive: players achieve a score of 8,192 by moving and merging numbered blocks, with each move and merge recorded as a transaction that updates the game's state on-chain in real-time.

On September 28, Sui launched a Web3 gaming platform called Play Beyond, which integrates 18 different games. This portal is designed to be simple and user-friendly, allowing players to enjoy games while easily accessing the conveniences brought by Sui blockchain technology without needing to master complex cryptocurrency knowledge. The launch of this platform reflects the trend in the gaming industry towards immersive and user-friendly experiences in 2023.

Since the launch of Sui's mainnet, its rapid development has attracted over 5.72 million users. Notably, Sui 8192 became a hotspot for user engagement in July, drawing significant attention and a continuously growing user base. Additionally, Sui's user loyalty incentive program has further propelled its development. The Quest 2 event held from July 28 to September 5 highlighted Sui's potential in the DeFi space, while the Quest 3 event from October 12 to November 9 focused on gaming projects. These user loyalty programs have played a crucial role in encouraging user participation and exploring the diverse functionalities of the Sui ecosystem.

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Data Source: Daily Active Users on Sui

In September, Sui implemented a series of measures to lower the entry barrier for users into the Web3 world by integrating OpenID Connect, allowing users to create on-chain accounts using existing mainstream Web2 services (such as Google, GitHub, Microsoft, Apple, and Facebook). This integration eliminates the reliance on private keys or mnemonic phrases, greatly simplifying the onboarding process for new users. Additionally, Sui employs zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) to maintain user privacy. These integration measures make the entire Sui ecosystem more accessible and user-friendly.