Why Sui?

What Is Sui (SUI)?

Sui is a low-latency, high-throughput layer-1 chain. Its instant transaction finality makes Sui a prime candidate for on-chain use cases like DeFi and GameFi. The blockchain is programmed in Rust, a programming language with a focus on fast and secure transaction executions. Rust is also the programming language of Solana, another high-speed blockchain.

Sui’s declared goal is to “cater to the next billion users in web3” by offering decentralized application (Dapp) deployment with a superior smart contract architecture compared to rival chains like Ethereum. The blockchain utilizes a process called “transaction parallelization” to achieve that, which allows transaction processing in “parallel agreement.” This “horizontal scaling,” as Sui dubs it, leads to better data organization in the byzantine fault-tolerant proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism.

Who Are the Founders of Sui?

Sui was founded by a team of ex-Meta engineers: Evan Cheng; Adeniyi Abiodun; Sam Blackshear; George Danezis; Kostas Chalkias.

Before founding Mysten Labs, the company behind the Sui blockchain, the group of five worked in the Novi division. Mysten Labs secured backing from high-profile crypto VC funds like a16z, which invested $36 million in a Series A raise in December 2021. Another $300 million Series B announcement followed, putting the company valuation at $2 billion. Funds with a stake in Mysten Labs include: Jump Crypto, Apollo, Binance Labs, Franklin Templeton, Coinbase Ventures, Circle Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sino Global, Dentsu Ventures, Greenoaks Capital and O’Leary Ventures.

What Makes Sui Unique?

Sui aims to overtake other layer-one blockchains by employing a different consensus and transaction processing mechanism. Instead of focusing on vertical scaling, Sui aims to immediately scale horizontally, which is to lead to the promised high throughput that distinguishes the blockchain.

Sui recognizes that many transactions have no relationship with each other. Instead of having each node validate each and every transaction, nodes only look at pieces of data relevant to them. This is what Sui calls a “object-centric model,” where chain data focuses on objects instead of accounts. It abstracts the traditional blockchain model into uncorrelated transaction flows that nodes can validate individually.

First, a sender broadcasts all transactions, which are checked by relevant validators and, if a majority agrees, sent back to the sender, who broadcasts the result to all validators. The relevant ownership models are: Owned by an address (e.g. coins, or NFTs); Owned by another object (an NFT that is part of another NFT); Shared (e.g. AMM pools).

This architecture allows Sui to target verticals such as NFTs, gaming, messaging services, social networks, and decentralized identity platforms.