Solana Killer? Introducing The SUI Blockchain and The SUI Token
When Bitcoin, the pioneer of blockchain and cryptocurrency, emerged, it revolutionized the landscape of digital finance, showcasing the potential for borderless transactions. However, as the adoption of the Bitcoin blockchain increased, it became evident that its efficiency was lacking. While it effortlessly facilitated cross-border transactions, the process took 10 minutes, with over an hour for finality. Despite offering decentralization and security, Bitcoin proved to be non-scalable.
This challenge led to the formulation of the blockchain trilemma, where developers grapple with balancing the three essential factors: decentralization, security, and scalability.
A few years after Bitcoin’s inception, Ethereum entered the scene with dual objectives. Firstly, it aimed to address the blockchain trilemma, and secondly, it sought to enhance blockchain versatility by serving as an infrastructure for developers to create tokens beyond simple money transfers. Consequently, Ethereum pioneered smart contracts and token development.
However, despite Ethereum’s strides, it too fell short of effectively resolving the blockchain trilemma. Processing 15–20 transactions per second (TPS), an improvement over Bitcoin’s 7 TPS, it still lagged behind. To put this into perspective, Visa, a traditional credit card processing company, settles 24,000 TPS.
The pursuit of a solution to the blockchain trilemma persisted, giving rise to Ethereum-killer blockchains, which aim to support smart contracts while achieving high transaction throughput.
Solana emerged as a prominent Ethereum competitor, boasting an impressive capability to handle 65,000 transactions per second with minimal fees and maintaining a relatively secure blockchain. Its success in scalability positioned Solana as the benchmark for new blockchains, leading projects like SUI and APTOS to be labeled as “Solana Killers.”
What Is The SUI Blockchain?
Sui is a Layer 1 blockchain that was launched in May 2023. It is designed to be high-speed, scalable, and secure.
As a Layer 1 chain, SUI can validate and finalize transactions without waiting for another network layer, like the Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Solana networks; this is unlike other Layer-2 chains that process transactions away from the main blockchain and only send them back to the main blockchain for finalization.
Sui aims to increase its scalability without compromising on security by using a combination of the native programming language “Move,” parallel processing of transactions, and the delegated proof-of-stake (DPoS) consensus mechanism.
All of these are aimed at making SUI the most scalable blockhain network, beating Solana to the title.
Currently, in terms of transaction speed, SUI can process up to 100,000 transactions per second (TPS) for as little as a tenth of a cent ($0.001), while Solana can only process up to 65,000 TPS, charging about a cent ($0.01) for transactions.
How Does The SUI Blockchain Function?
As mentioned earlier, the Sui blockchain has three major elements that facilitate its high level of scalability without compromising decentralization and security.
1. The Move Programming Language
One of the most important factors that keep the SUI blockchain secure is its programming language, Move.
Move was originally created for Facebook’s Libra (now Diem) cryptocurrency, which was designed to be a low-fee stablecoin payment system.
Move was created as an upgrade to “rust,” Solana’s blockchain programming language, with the aim of addressing several issues that have arisen in traditional blockchain programming languages when building assets. According to Move developers, Solidity (for Ethereum and other EVM chains) and Rust lack the necessary vocabulary to describe assets.
For instance, in Solidity, assets are typically represented using hash tables and bytes, leading to complexities in implementing smart contracts. This often requires extensive customization and fine-tuning, exposing smart contracts to potential vulnerabilities that could be exploited.
Hence, Move portrays itself as one that places a strong emphasis on the security of assets, aiming to address the limitations and vulnerabilities observed in conventional blockchain programming languages such as Solidity and Rust.
2. Delegated Proof-of-Stake Consensus (DPoS)
SUI achieves blockchain consensus with the Delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS), where a fixed set of validators are delegated from the entire pool of validators to process transactions within each epoch (a period of 24 hours).
Anyone with at least 30 million SUI tokens staked can become a validator, and the SUI blockchain has over 2,000 validating nodes. However, with its DPoS model, every day, only 100 nodes will be selected from these 2,000 to validate transactions.
As a result, it makes it quite difficult for attackers to track down specific nodes with the aim of compromising them because the delegates are always changing.
More importantly, the DPoS system eliminates the possibility of a 51% attack, as collusion becomes impossible since the delegated nodes are always changing.
3. Parallel Transaction Execution
Most older blockchains, like Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB, etc., execute their transactions sequentially, moving to the next one after the first one is done. However, newer chains like Solana, Aptos and SUI executes transactions parallelly, meaning that several transactions are simultaneously executed without waiting for the completion of another. As a result, it can boast over 100,000 TPS.
Also, SUI categorizes transaction types into “simple” and “complex.”
For simple transactions, such as sending tokens from one wallet to another, a transaction may bypass the lengthy consensus protocol and process almost instantly, decongesting the blockchain’s queue by eliminating the need for clear transactions to go through the longer and more expensive consensus process.
What is The SUI Token?
$SUI is the native token of the SUI blockchain, which is used to pay gas fees, execute on-chain transactions, and stake to become a network validator and secure the network. The SUI token is also used to vote on governance decisions about the project’s future.
SUI has a total supply of 10 billion tokens, with just about 1.1 billion (11%) in circulation.
Full tokenomics information is outlined below:
- SUI Foundation: 50%
- Early contributors: 20%
- Seed Funding: 14%
- Mysten Labs Treasury: 10%
- Community Access Program: 6%
How to Invest In The SUI Token
Investing in SUI is pretty easy. All you need to do is visit an exchange, purchase some tokens, and store them in a safe custodial or noncustodial wallet, depending on your expertise level.
You can easily send, receive, and store SUI tokens at no fees on Cwallet, as well as use them with other Cwallet services such as sending tips and airdrops, playing games to earn crypto, or creating an exclusive communityof SUI holders
SUI Token Price
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