What's so special about Sui's technology?

Original title: What Makes Sui Special?

Original author: David C, Bankless

Original translation: Ismay, BlockBeats

Editor's note: This article explores Sui's core technologies such as object-oriented data model, Sui Move programming language, network structure, and dynamic NFT standards, and introduces its zkLogin that simplifies user experience and DeepBook that provides reliable transaction infrastructure. Although Sui still faces many challenges in the face of mature EVM ecology and other competitors, its unique innovation may win it a place in the highly competitive crypto market.

There is almost nothing that can stir up more heated discussions about cryptocurrency than copycat Layer1.

Although these new chains always promise to be bigger, faster, and better than Ethereum, few can really deliver on these huge promises. This cycle has seen a new crop of competitors emerge, with venture-backed Sui gaining a lot of attention.

A spinoff of Facebook’s now-defunct Diem project, Sui raised $330 million from a16z, Coinbase, Jump, and others, and launched in May 2023. Since then, its total locked value has exceeded $600 million. Sui has also been making a splash in the crypto market this week, leading the way among alt-layer1s with gains of 47% and 13% over the past week and month, respectively.

We’ve discussed Sui from a project perspective before, but haven’t delved into its technology.

What’s unique about Sui’s technology?

Sui claims that its blockchain is backed by a number of unique elements. Let’s take a closer look at its object-oriented data model, Sui Move language, network structure, and dynamic NFT standards.

Object-oriented data model

Sui adopts a unique object-oriented data model that organizes all data on the chain into unique "objects" that contain ownership, transaction history, and definition details, allowing 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 overall state management on the chain, theoretically enhancing its scalability. While Solana also supports parallel processing, it also relies on an account model that requires careful conflict management. Sui's object-oriented model aims to avoid these complexities, potentially making it simpler and more scalable.

Sui Move

Sui Move is a modification of Diem's Move language, tailored for Sui's object-oriented model with a focus on security. The language treats resources (such as tokens) as immutable, preventing them from being copied or destroyed and eliminating threats such as double spending or reentrancy attacks. On Sui, security measures such as the Move bytecode verifier are built into the system, which checks before code is allowed on the chain.

Network Structure

Sui's object-oriented data model and consensus mechanism are designed to enable it to process large numbers of transactions quickly and efficiently. Instead of batching transactions together, Sui's validation nodes process each transaction individually and in parallel. Different transactions involving different objects can be processed simultaneously without waiting for blocks to be filled. Since transactions do not need to wait for each other, this feature theoretically allows Sui to process hundreds of thousands of transactions per second, although its average TPS over the past 30 days is only 36.

Dynamic NFT Standard

Sui has developed an NFT standard that supports dynamic usage by default.

Like all Sui data, NFTs are treated as objects, which enables them to change behavior over time. This also supports composability, allowing NFTs to be combined with other assets into more complex assets, or updated with new properties after they are created. For example, an NFT ticket could be updated to show that it has been used, or a work of art could be modified over time. These standards could be attractive to NFT creators because Sui also supports automatic royalty payments, ensuring that the original creator receives a percentage of future sales directly through the blockchain rather than an external platform.

Other Sui Features

Sui also likes to tout its out-of-the-box solutions, such as zkLogin and DeepBook, which aim to simplify user authentication and lower the barrier to entry for building DeFi on the chain.

zkLogin

zkLogin simplifies on-chain access by allowing users to log into Sui-based applications using familiar Web2 credentials such as Google or Twitch, eliminating the need to set up a classic wallet. While this may seem contrary to the idea of 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 reliable trading infrastructure for DeFi, DeepBook allows developers to focus on building new features without having to manage underlying trading logic or launch their own liquidity pools. With DeepBook, each asset has its own independent liquidity pool, preventing interference between trading pairs and ensuring smoother and faster transaction processing.

Summary

Although Sui faces challenges in convincing users to abandon EVM or choose it over other alt-L1s with deeper DeFi liquidity (such as Solana), the market is always willing to give a new network a fair chance. However, with the emergence of high-performance EVM chains such as Monad and MegaETH, the competition is becoming more and more fierce, and the road ahead may be more difficult for alt-L1s with a lot of private funding.

Overall, Sui may indeed bring some unique advancements to the crypto space. As to whether the above characteristics are enough to allow Sui to take a further step in this already very crowded field, we will leave it to you to judge.

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