​Meta developers’ new project. What you need to know about the Sui blockchain

Sui Network is a new Layer 1 (L1) blockchain platform created by the Mysten Labs team. The project positions itself as a competitor to the Aptos network, which uses the same programming language, Move, and was also created by former Meta employees.

On November 17, the developers of Sui launched a testnet Wave 1, through which the viability of the technology will be tested. Mysten Labs states that the new blockchain has high scalability potential and in the future will allow developers to “build experiences that cater to the next billion users in web3.”

History of creation

Mysten Labs was founded in September 2021 by former employees of Novi Research. It is a division of Meta Corporation, which developed the canceled Diem blockchain and the Move programming language. The company’s CEO is Evan Cheng, the former director of research and development.

The Sui network was first publicly unveiled in March 2022, with work on it starting back in the fall of 2021. Mysten Labs managed to raise $36 million from venture capital fund Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) earlier this year and another $300 million in a Series B funding round in September. The company is currently valued at $2 billion.

Cheng said in one of his addresses that “current web3 infrastructure is in the dial-up era – it’s slow, expensive, capacity constrained, insecure, and simply hard to build for.” According to his plans, Sui is supposed to be a high-throughput blockchain that will drive industry-wide growth by allowing users to seamlessly interact with any product on the network without intermediaries.

Sui architecture

According to the Sui technical documentation, the blockchain consists of three main components:

• Objects. This is the basic unit of storage on Sui. They are created and managed by Move packages, as the developers call smart contracts. In this, the smart contracts themselves are also objects. Thus, data on the network falls into two categories: mutable (Move objects) and immutable (Move packages).
• Transactions. They are used to record all the changes in the network in the Sui ledger.
• Validators. The entire network and transactions are processed by independent validators. Each of them runs its own instance of the Sui software on a separate device.

The blockchain uses the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus algorithm. Operations on the network are processed by validators, which change every “epoch” (24 hours). According to Sui Explorer, as of December 30, there are 4 validators and 3849 active nodes in the testnet.

Transactions

Sui assumes that the typical blockchain transaction is a transfer of data from user to user, so the network is optimized for this scenario. At the same time, the protocol distinguishes between two types of assets: owned, which can only be changed by the owner, and shared, which have no specific owners and can be changed by more than one user.

Therefore, the method of transaction processing depends on the type of asset. If it is owned assets, such as token transfers, NFT issuance, or voting participation, they are processed in a simpler way by the Fast Pay method. It is based on the Byzantine Consistent Broadcast mechanism, which involves four steps:

1. A transaction is sent to a node, which will subsequently transmit its data to a validator
2. Validators verify the transaction and validate it, notifying the sender
3. Already sender creates a certificate, which must contain the signatures of at least 2/3 of the network validators
4. The sender gets a certificate with details of the transaction, if necessary

In this case, there is no need to find a consensus between validators, so the transaction is performed faster.

If the operation is related to shared assets, then the transaction will have an additional step — finding the same consensus between validators. To do this, the Sui Consensus Engine is used, which consists of two components: Nurwhal and Bullshark (sometimes the older Tusk technology is used instead).

Nurwhal is a mempool, which is responsible for the preservation and availability of the data to be checked, while it has a high throughput. Bullshark is a protocol that allows consensus between validators without the need to exchange information between them.

One of Sui’s most interesting features for scaling is parallel transactions. On most blockchains, validations are executed sequentially, which reduces competition between transactions and eliminates double-spending, but limits throughput.

Parallel transaction execution mchanism

Source: Sui.io

Parallel transactions make confirmation speeds lightning fast. This method allows Sui to process up to 120 000 transactions per second (TPS) on the MacBook Pro, compared to only 7–15 transactions per second on the Ethereum network. More complex transactions, which require consensus between validators, take slightly longer — 2–3 seconds.

Sui economics

SUI is the native token of the Sui blockchain. Its total supply will be limited to 10 billion coins. SUI will be split into 1 billion MIST tokens. There is no exact timeline for the release of the asset yet; it is expected to occur at the same time as the release of the mainnet.

However, when the Sui mainnet is launched, not all 10 billion tokens will enter the network. Part of them will be distributed among developers, investors, and community members. A share of the coins will go to the Sui storage fund, which will pay rewards for validators. Also, a significant portion will go to an organization independent of Mysten Labs, the Sui Foundation, which is going to fund future events and developments.

SUI token distribution after the blockchain lunch

Source: Sui.io

The SUI token performs several functions:

• A means of payment, exchange, and accumulation;
• Fee payment;
• Empowers token holders to participate in project governance through voting;
• Staking and collateral for validators

Staking rewards will be paid at the end of each epoch. The project team will also reward node owners, they will receive 2000 SUI each after the launch of the mainnet.

As for the problem of fees, the developers have proposed a unique solution that will help stabilize this value. The gas price is fixed at the beginning of each epoch, which means that during the day the transaction fee will remain at the same level instead of the minute-to-minute fluctuations, as on other networks.

The blockchain also has its own wallet, Sui Wallet. It is available as an extension for Google Chrome and performs all the basic functions. Users will also be able to restore their old wallet by seed phrase. It can be used to manage all types of assets, including NFTs, as well as interact with decentralized applications (DApps).

Application development

Mysten Labs says that developers will have many different tools at their disposal that will allow them to create DApps and other Web 3.0 projects with an improved UX design. The types of applications Sui supports:

• Decentralized (DeFi) and Traditional Finance (TradFi)
• Bonus and loyalty programs
• Integrated gaming and business solutions
• Asset tokenization services
• Decentralized social networks
• Non-fungible tokens

More than 60 projects in various directions are already being developed on Sui. For example, Suiswap and MovEx decentralized exchanges (DEX), DeFi applications Cetus and Porto Labs, and NFT marketplaces Blue Move, Sui Art, and Sui Gallery will appear based on the network. In addition, the blockchain will be linked to the Wormhole and Axelar Network cross-chain bridges. Several blockchain games have also been announced — F1 Dog, Trial Xtrem, and Netmarble.

The future of the project

Gradually, Sui developers will be implementing new features and mechanisms into the testnet that are necessary for stable mainnet operation. The main goals of the team so far are to test the structure, validators, nodes, wallets, and a set of tools for developers. The testnet itself is organized as a series of “waves” — each new feature will be implemented in turn.

“We will graduate from Testnet to mainnet when we are fully confident in the security and performance of our software, have seen sustained operational excellence from our initial validators, and validate our developer experience via compelling Move-powered applications deployed on testnet,” said the Mysten Labs team.

The Sui blockchain has great potential, and many Web 3.0 supporters approve of its technological features and Mysten Labs’ vision. However, the Move programming language is a new development that requires more study and stress testing.

Sui will face serious competition from the Aptos blockchain and other protocols, but the information already available about upcoming applications suggests that developers are ready to interact with the technology. Perhaps a new high throughput blockchain will emerge in the future to help take a big step in the development of the Web 3.0 realm.