Sui by Mystenlabs: What is it, How it Works, and How to Buy?

Everything You Need to Know About Sui (SUI)

Introduction

In recent years, several technical solutions have emerged to address the obvious scalability issues of dominant networks in the market. However, none of these protocols are able to meet the global demand if blockchain were to be widely adopted. That’s where MystenLabs comes in with their protocol, Sui.

Sui: Web 3.0 at Scale

Sui is a layer 1 blockchain that utilizes a Proof of Stake consensus mechanism, aiming to revolutionize the adoption of web 3 at a large scale. Developed by MystenLabs, founded by former engineers from Meta (Facebook), Sui introduces an innovative mempool protocol (Narwhal), a programming language (Move), and a groundbreaking consensus algorithm (Tusk). Together, they offer unlimited scalability without compromising security.

MystenLabs’ Promises:

Sui could provide unlimited horizontal scalability to meet the demands of future “mass market” applications while maintaining extremely low transaction and operating costs. The platform could achieve unprecedented throughput and low latency for common use cases. In theory, it could process over 100,000 tx/s, far surpassing Ethereum’s current capability of 15 tx/s. Sui has been specifically designed to accommodate the next billion users.

Evan Chang, co-founder and CEO of MystenLabs, believed that delivering a blockchain capable of handling a few thousand transactions with decent latency was not enough for mass adoption. Therefore, MystenLabs had to innovate the architecture and functionality of the system.

Sui aims to establish itself as the leading alternative, offering unparalleled capabilities before the launch of its mainnet. It promises:

• Unmatched scalability and instant settlement
• Secure and accessible smart contract language
• Improved user experience for Web 3 applications
• Unlimited data storage

Sui aims to do for web 3 what high-speed internet did for web 2.

Unconventional Operation:

Sui deliberately forgoes consensus and instead utilizes simpler, low-latency algorithms for common use cases such as payment transactions and asset transfers. This innovative approach sets it apart in the blockchain world and allows it to achieve extraordinary scalability and scalability.

Sui achieves this through its innovative mempool protocol designed as a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) and its consensus algorithm, developed by its technical teams. Sui’s distributed system stores a collection of programmable objects, each with a unique identifier.

To address the bottleneck faced by most networks, Sui focuses on the most common transactions, such as user-to-user transfers and asset manipulations. Sui distinguishes between owned objects, which can only be modified by their specific owner, and shared objects, which can be modified by most users. This distinction allows the system to achieve ultra-low latency, as Sui only requires its consensus protocol for transactions involving shared objects.

In simpler terms, many transactions do not have complex interdependencies with other arbitrary parts of the blockchain state, and users simply want to send an asset to a recipient. Therefore, the only data required to determine the eligibility of these transactions is a “fresh view” of the sender’s account at the moment of evaluation. This observation allows Sui to use simpler algorithms based on Byzantine fault-tolerant broadcast instead of consensus.

The SUI Token:

Like any respectable layer 1 blockchain, Sui has its native token, SUI. The platform’s token is used for gas fees and delegated staking on validators. Validators are periodically reconfigured based on the stake delegated to them. At the end of each epoch, the collected fees are distributed to validators based on their contribution to the system’s operation.

The Technical Aspect of Sui’s Innovations

Objects:

Sui’s operation relies on objects that could theoretically replace blocks in more traditional distributed systems. Sui’s system works with a smart contract language called Move, which is composed of packages. The global state of the blockchain includes a set of programmable objects created and managed by these packages. There are two different states for these objects: immutable objects and mutable objects.

Immutable objects cannot be modified and do not have exclusive owners, while mutable objects can be modified. Mutable objects can be further categorized into owned objects (modifiable by their owner) and shared objects (modifiable by most users). Immutable objects do not require this differentiation, as they have no owners. This distinction allows the network to achieve exceptional scalability by bypassing consensus for transactions involving owned objects.

Transactions:

In a traditional distributed network, validators collectively build a shared accumulator, representing the current state of the blockchain, to which they add increments over time in the form of blocks. Each time a validator wants to propose a block, they sequence the proposal to agree with the rest of the network on the current state of the chain before and after the addition.

Common Transactions:

Sui takes a different approach to transactions by validating them individually instead of grouping them into blocks. This approach offers the advantage of very low latency for successfully finalized transactions. Unlike a typical distributed network, the transaction submission process in Sui is somewhat more complicated and follows these steps:

1. The sender submits a transaction to all Sui validators.
2. Validators individually vote on the transaction, with each vote carrying a certain weight based on the proof of stake rules.
3. The sender collects the majority of these “Byzantine fault-tolerant” votes into a certificate and broadcasts it to all validators to ensure finality, guaranteeing that the transaction will not be revoked.
4. The sender receives a certificate detailing the effects of the transaction.

This is how “common” transactions are handled on the Sui network.

Complex Transactions:

Smart contracts (complex transactions) can benefit from shared objects, where more than one user can modify these objects according to the contract rules. In this case, Sui orders all transactions involving shared objects using its consensus protocol based on Narwhal. When shared objects are involved, the transaction follows the following steps:

1. The sender broadcasts a transaction to all validators.
2. Each validator individually votes with their own weight (based on the proof of stake rules).
3. The sender collects a majority of Byzantine fault-tolerant votes in a certificate and broadcasts it back to the validators (this time the certificate is sequenced by Byzantine agreement).
4. Once the transaction is sequenced, the user broadcasts the certificate to validators to settle the transaction.

Narwhal and Tusk: MystenLabs’ Secret Weapons

In this section, we’ll briefly explain what Narwhal and Tusk are and how their combined functionality brings true innovation and evolution to the Sui system.

Narwhal:

Narwhal is a new mempool model based on a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG). It ensures wide availability and integrity of user-submitted transactions in an entirely asynchronous network. It is a distributed structured storage resistant to Byzantine faults, providing availability and partial ordering (only for complex transactions involving shared objects) of data submitted for consensus.

Tusk:

Tusk is a high-throughput consensus algorithm that, combined with the Narwhal protocol and the number of validators, offers unprecedented performance. Narwhal and Tusk share the following features and responsibilities:

• Narwhal ensures availability of data submitted for consensus
• Tusk creates consensus on the specific ordering of data (state updates)

These features are executed in two-layer modules, allowing Narwhal to be coupled with other external consensus algorithms. The combination of these two protocols and the scale of validators verifying the network could potentially provide a theoretical throughput of over 500,000 tx/s with a latency of no more than 4 seconds.

Move: A Smart Contract Language that Agrees

Move is an open-source language used on Sui for smart contract programming. Initially developed to power the Diem blockchain (formerly Libra) owned by Meta (formerly Facebook), Move is a platform-agnostic language, making it versatile and extensible for creating and using it on other systems with different operating structures.

For developers interested in using Move, tutorials and documentation are available on the Move GitHub.

Sui adopts a slightly different programming model using a subset of the classical Move model called “Sui Move,” while maintaining identical syntax. In this section, we’ll only scratch the surface of Move’s technical functioning to keep it digestible.

Advantages of Move:

Move offers multiple advantages and features, some of which are worth mentioning:

• Move provides high security and resistance against reentrancy attacks that have caused significant damage to Ethereum (e.g., TheDAO). It achieves this through code verification using implemented specifications, unlike traditional smart contract languages that rely on human verification, which can lead to potential errors.
• Move was specifically designed to address the representation and security of digital assets.
• Move was co-developed with a verification tool called Move Prover, allowing developers to write formal specifications for their application’s key properties and verify that all possible transactions and inputs adhere to these properties. This significantly reduces development time and costs, enhancing productivity and accessibility in the smart contract development world, ultimately contributing to mass adoption.

Move stands out by allowing modules to import structures and invoke functions present in other modules, enabling seamless communication and transition between modules.

It’s worth noting that Move is designed as an agnostic language, meaning it’s not tied to a specific platform and can be used on other systems. This versatility allows for the use of common libraries and tools across different blockchains with varying operating models.

Move is already being used by platforms like OL and Starcoin, and integration of Move is planned for other existing and upcoming platforms.

Move’s Functioning:

We’ll briefly cover some key concepts of the Move language structure, which can be explored further in the documentation.

Packages:

The primary unit of organization in Move is called a “Package,” which includes the Move.toml file. A package consists of modules (separated by .move extension files) where Move functions and type definitions are implemented.

A minimum structure for a package’s source directory looks like this:

Package/ ├── Move.toml ├── Module1.move └── Module2.move

Move packages are immutable objects, meaning they cannot be modified after publication. On the other hand, a Move object can be shared, allowing anyone to use and mutate it.

Modules:

A module consists of a collection of named structure (struct) declarations and named function declarations. Move’s language is organized into modules, whose structure is defined as follows:

module ModuleName { // Struct declarations struct StructName { // Field declarations } // Function declarations fun functionName() {} }

A module also contains a special function declaration that serves as the module initializer.

Structs:

A struct is a user-defined data structure that contains typed fields of any non-referenced types, including other structs. Move’s struct type is similar to struct types in other programming languages like C or C++. Structs must be defined within a module:

module ModuleName { struct StructName { // Field declarations } }

For those willing to dive deeper, the documentation provides a more in-depth approach.

The Team

• Evan Cheng: Co-founder and CEO of MystenLabs, previously spent 10 years at Apple as a senior engineer and manager. Later became the Director of Engineering and Language at Facebook from 2015 to 2018, followed by Director of Research and Development at Novi Financial.
• Adeniyi Abiodun: Co-founder and CPO of MystenLabs, worked as a senior software engineer at renowned companies like HSBC and J.P. Morgan before delving into the blockchain industry. He also worked as a product lead at Meta for two years.
• Sam Blackshear: Co-founder and CTO of MystenLabs, also worked at Facebook as a staff engineer from 2015 to 2018, before joining Novi Financial as a principal engineer. He is the creator of the Move language.
• George Danezis: Co-founder and Chief Scientist, taught security engineering and privacy at the University College London, known for its reputation. He worked at Facebook, contributing to the creation of Diem (formerly Libra) from 2019 to 2021.
• Kostas Chalkias: Co-founder and Chief Cryptographer, co-founded two companies (Safemarket and Erybo Inc) specializing in security and cryptography. He also worked at Meta on the Diem project.

This brief introduction to the founders of MystenLabs showcases the project’s strong backing from experienced professionals in the field, supported by a significant financial investment. MystenLabs raised $36 million in funding in 2021.

The Future of Sui

Looking ahead, MystenLabs encourages the most involved developers to explore and work with the Move language. Tutorials are available to facilitate adoption. Moreover, a public devnet has been available since May 5th to allow developers to test their smart contracts.

The team also has several plans for the future:

• A testnet is expected to launch in early June or early July, integrating a diverse set of authorities beyond MystenLabs’ management.

For further updates on Sui’s roadmap, it is recommended to follow the project closely.