Sui: Layer 1 Blockchain Revolutionizing DeFi & DApps with Transaction Parallelization

Modified on Tue, 23 Sep at 6:08 PM

What is Sui?

Sui is a Layer 1 blockchain featuring a new type of smart contract designed to support digital asset ownership. It supports fast operation, privacy, security, and ease of use, making Sui a suitable platform for on-chain use cases such as Earn-to-play games, decentralized finance, and other real-time applications.

Sui uses smart contracts written in Move, which is a programming language based on Rust that emphasizes fast and secure transaction processing.

In addition, Sui features a mechanism called “horizontal scaling” through a process called “transaction parallelization,” where transactions can be processed independently of each other with independent data organization and are verified by Sui nodes through a Byzantine Fault-tolerant Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism.

Key technologies driving the operation of SUI

Move Programming Language: Sui leverages the Move programming language, which is specifically designed for the development of secure and efficient smart contracts. Move focuses on resource safety and object orientation, a software development concept that makes it suitable for Sui's architecture by minimizing risks and maximizing efficiency.
Byzantine Fault-tolerant Proof-of-Stake (PoS): Byzantine Fault-tolerant Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus ensures high network reliability and security. This allows the network to remain operational and trustworthy even if some validators are faulty or malicious, with validators securing the network through cryptocurrency staking.
Programmable Transaction Blocks: PTBs in Sui offer a flexible and powerful approach to interacting with the blockchain. They enable users to combine multiple actions – such as calling various Move functions and managing different types of assets (Objects and coins) – into a single transaction without deploying new code.
Parallel transaction execution: Ethereum uses sequential processing, unlike Sui, which executes multiple transactions simultaneously, increasing speed and efficiency. This means that complex transactions can be confirmed faster and concurrently, significantly increasing the network's throughput.

SUI Development Team

The Sui development team consists of Evan Cheng, Adeniyi Abiodun, Sam Blackshear, George Danezis, and Kostas Chalkias, who are former engineers from Meta. All five of them previously worked in the Novi department before founding Mysten Labs to build and develop Sui.

Mysten Labs has garnered significant financial support, starting with a $36 million Series A investment led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) in December 2021. This was followed by a substantial $300 million Series B funding round, which included a $140 million investment from FTX Ventures, valuing the startup at approximately $2 billion. Additional funding was also secured from prominent investors such as Jump Crypto, Apollo, Binance Labs, Franklin Templeton, Coinbase Ventures, Circle Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sino Global, Dentsu Ventures, Greenoaks Capital, and O’Leary Ventures.

In August 2022, Sui announced its first incentivized testnet launch, gradually releasing key features to actively test the network. Until May 2023, the Sui Mainnet was officially launched, which was a significant milestone for the project and made the network publicly accessible. Following the Mainnet launch, the Sui ecosystem has grown rapidly, with numerous DeFi protocols, NFT projects, and game applications being developed and deployed on the network.

What is the SUI Token?

SUI is the native token of the Sui network and serves multiple purposes for the Sui protocol, including:

Gas fees: Used as gas fees to pay for transaction execution and smart contract deployment.
Staking and Security: Validators and delegators can stake to secure the network and earn rewards.
Governance: Token holders can participate in on-chain voting for protocol upgrades.
DeFi & liquidity: SUI can be used in DeFi applications for lending, borrowing, and trading.
NFTs and Gaming: Sui has what is called an object model that makes it suitable for gaming and digital asset ownership.

Sui’s Economic Model – Source Sui Document - Tokenomics

SUI Token Distribution

Sui's SUI token has a fixed total supply of 10 billion on its main network. Upon Mainnet launch, around 5% of these tokens were in circulation, while the rest will be released over time based on a strategic unlock schedule designed to promote network stability and long-term security.

This chart presents an estimate of the circulating supply over the next seven years. – Source: SUI Token

SUI has the following token distribution by percentage:

Community Reserve (Delegation Program, Grant Programs, Research and Development, Validator Subsidies): 50%
Early Contributors: 20%
Investors: 14%
Mysten Labs Treasury: 10%
Community Access Program and Application Testers (Which may be considered airdrop incentives for users): 6%

Interesting Price Information about SUI

According to data from Coinmarketcap on 2 April 2025, the SUI coin has a market capitalization of $8,127,020,825 USD, or approximately 277,735,444,634 Thai Baht.

At the time of writing this article, the SUI token is trading at approximately $2.50 USD, or about 85.50 Thai Baht per 1 SUI. SUI's all-time high price was $5.35 USD, or approximately 182.59 Thai Baht per 1 SUI, on 6 January 2025.

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