What Makes Sui Special?
Few things stir Crypto up quite as much as alt-L1s.
Though these new chains always promise to be bigger, faster, and better than Ethereum, few last long enough to deliver on their big promises. This cycle has welcomed a new cohort of competitors, and VC-backed Sui has garnered plenty of attention.
A descendant of Facebook’s defunct Diem project, Sui raised $330M from a16z, Coinbase, and Jump and launched in May 2023. Since then, it has amassed over $600M in TVL. Sui has also been lighting up the crypto markets this week, leading alt-L1s in gains over the past week (47%) and month (13%).
We've talked about Sui here before through the lens of the projects being built on it, but we haven't spent much time with the tech.
Today, we're taking a look at what, if anything, it brings to the table👇
How does Sui’s Tech Stand Out?
Sui claims a handful of unique elements bolstering its blockchain. Below, let's dig into its object-centric data model, Sui Move language, network structure, and dynamic NFT standards.
▪️ Object-Centric Data Model
Sui uses a unique object-centric data model that organizes all the chain’s data into unique "objects" that hold ownership, transaction history, and defining details, allowing for efficient parallel processing of transactions involving different objects.
Unlike Ethereum, which tracks state through accounts and requires sequential processing, Sui's approach aims to simplify the chain’s overall state management, theoretically enhancing its scalability. While Solana also supports parallel processing, it also relies on an account-based model that requires careful conflict management. Sui’s object-centric model aims to bypass these complexities, potentially making it even more streamlined and scalable.
▪️ Sui Move
Sui Move, a modified version of Diem's Move language, is purpose-built for Sui’s object-centric model, with a strong focus on security. The language treats resources like tokens as immutable, preventing duplication or destruction and eliminating threats like double-spending or reentrancy attacks. On Sui, certain safety measures are built into the system like the Move bytecode verifier, which checks code before it's allowed on the blockchain.
▪️ Network Structure
Sui's object-centric data model and consensus mechanism aim to enable it to handle a large volume of transactions quickly and efficiently. Instead of batching transactions, Sui validators process them individually and in parallel. Different transactions involving different objects can be processed simultaneously without waiting for a block to fill. Since transactions don’t wait for each other, this feature theoretically allows Sui to handle hundreds of thousands of transactions per second, though its average TPS over the past 30 days is just 36.
▪️ Dynamic NFT Standards
Sui developed NFT standards that support dynamic use by default.
Like all Sui data, NFTs are treated as objects, allowing them to change behavior over time. This also supports composability, allowing NFTs to be combined into more complex assets or updated with new attributes after creation. For example, an NFT ticket could be updated to show it has been used, or artwork could be modified over time. These standards could be attractive to NFT creators, as Sui also supports automatic royalty payments, ensuring original creators receive a percentage of future sales directly through the blockchain without external platforms.
Other Sui Features
Sui also likes to advertise its out-of-the-box solutions, zkLogin and DeepBook, which aim to simplify user authentication and lower the barrier to entry for building DeFi on the chain.
zkLogin
zkLogin simplifies chain access by allowing users to log into Sui-based apps with familiar Web2 credentials like Google or Twitch, eliminating the need for a classic wallet setup. Though it may seem counterintuitive to crypto privacy, zkLogin leverages zero-knowledge proofs to securely link Web2 credentials to Sui addresses.
DeepBook
DeepBook is an open-source central limit order book (CLOB) that serves as a shared liquidity layer within the Sui ecosystem. By providing DeFi with reliable trading infrastructure, DeepBook allows developers to focus on building new features rather than managing basic trading logic or bootstrapping their own liquidity pools. With DeepBook, each asset has its own pool, preventing interference between trading pairs and ensuring smoother, faster processing.
Closing Thoughts
While Sui has a tough road ahead in convincing users to eschew the EVM or choose it over other alt-L1s with deeper DeFi liquidity like Solana, the market is always ready to give a fresh network a fair shake. Though with highly performant EVM chains like Monad and MegaETH emerging, the competition is thick and it could be a tough road ahead for Alt-L1s with substantial private backing.
In summary, Sui may indeed have some unique advancements to offer crypto. We'll leave it to you whether the above features are enough to take Sui to the next level in an already-crowded landscape.