Move Twins: How Sui and Aptos are Challenging the Blockchain Landscape

Author: YBB Capital Researcher Zeke

Foreword

The market has recently grown increasingly stagnant, causing many OGs within the space to start questioning the very purpose of the industry. I’d like to share some personal thoughts on this. I’ve always believed that many grand visions from the past were “debunked” because they were never logically coherent from the start. Non-financial Dapps often try to mask their shortcomings by emphasizing decentralized values. But the reality is, they ask me to trust their multi-signature wallets and single-node servers over Google, Twitter, or YouTube, claiming they are secure enough. Many visions weren’t debunked; they were simply never truly tested. I still believe that even if these visions aren’t as grand as initially thought, they still hold significance — they just need a robust foundation to support them. At the very least, they should offer either decentralization or an experience comparable to Web2.

Take TON and Solana, for example; they were once underestimated but are now gradually catching up to the industry leaders in various aspects. Blockchains that support applications need innovation, which in every cycle pushes the industry forward. Today, we will explore a type of blockchain that has long been overlooked — the Move-based blockchains.

1. Move

The Move programming language was initially developed for Meta’s abandoned project, Diem (originally called Libra). Diem aimed to create a more stable and regulated stablecoin as the foundation of Meta’s metaverse vision. However, the project faced strong opposition and relentless pressure from global regulatory bodies. Regulators feared that Diem’s scale, combined with Facebook’s massive user base, could pose threats to financial stability, monetary policy, and data privacy. Under pressure, especially from the Biden administration, Meta eventually had to abandon the Diem project.

Fortunately, the core of Diem was not entirely discarded. Various factions that split from the original team continued to explore and develop Move, which has since evolved into the well-known Move twin stars: Sui and Aptos. In addition to these, there are other emerging projects like Linera (a Rust-based blockchain inspired by Move) and Movement, which has been heavily promoted recently.

So why has the legacy of a project that was cut in half had such a lasting impact? Move, as a programming language developed by a top Web2 company for blockchain, is highly sophisticated. It was designed with reflections on the performance and security issues of existing blockchain programming languages, especially Solidity. The goal of its design was to create a type system specifically tailored for asset management and access control. I’ve summarized its strengths into three simple points:

· Security: The primary design principle of the Move language is security. It uses static type checking and resource management to prevent common security vulnerabilities such as overflow errors and reentrancy attacks. Compared to other language virtual machines, Move supports various security features, as shown in the Nansen comparison chart below.

· Composability: Move supports modularity and composability, allowing developers to easily create and combine different smart contracts, thereby building more complex applications.

· Performance: The Move language’s virtual machine is optimized (supporting parallelism, memory management, and compiler optimization), enabling it to efficiently execute smart contracts, thereby improving transaction speed and throughput.

In a market flooded with modular EVM blockchains, Move represents a bold experiment. While the points mentioned above might seem familiar from other blockchain projects’ descriptions, I strongly recommend experiencing them firsthand to fully grasp the tangible benefits of these features.

2. Sui

2.1 Architecture

As one of the twin stars, Sui has faced criticism since its launch, particularly regarding airdrops and token distribution methods. However, setting these issues aside and focusing on the project itself, Sui has proven to be excellent in both performance and user experience, especially in gaming. This success is largely due to its innovative architecture, which has been refined for mainstream adoption. Below is a brief overview of Sui’s architectural innovations:

1. Object Storage Model: This component is the core of Sui’s improvements to Move. The object storage model treats data as independent objects, each with a unique identifier. Unlike traditional database systems, the object storage model has no fixed data structure and can store various types of data, such as text, images, videos, and audio. This model allows for parallel execution and horizontal scaling (adding nodes to expand storage capacity), and Sui’s design revolves around this model.
2. Causal Ordering: Ensures that the execution order of transactions aligns with their causal relationships, avoiding data conflicts and inconsistencies. This feature enables Sui to handle a high volume of concurrent transactions while maintaining data consistency.
3. Narwhal and Bullshark Consensus Engines: Sui employs Narwhal and Bullshark as its consensus engines. Narwhal is responsible for transaction ordering and validation. It works by maintaining a local transaction pool, ordering transactions based on their causal relationships, and broadcasting them to ensure all nodes have the same valid transaction order. Bullshark, upon receiving Narwhal’s ordered transaction list, votes on the list and uses Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) consensus to ensure all nodes agree on the transaction order.
4. Sui Move: Sui has extended the Move language by adding new features, such as support for NFTs, asset management, and data storage.
5. Sui Framework: Sui provides a comprehensive framework to help developers quickly build and deploy applications. This framework includes various tools and libraries, such as the Sui Wallet, Sui SDK, and Sui CLI.

Sui’s architectural design enables it to handle a large number of concurrent transactions while maintaining high speed, low fees, and security. Additionally, the Sui Move language and Sui framework provide developers with powerful tools to build secure, scalable, and user-friendly applications.

2.2 Consensus

The Sui blockchain uses a consensus mechanism called Mysticeti, a Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT)-based consensus designed to optimize for low latency and high throughput.

Mysticeti allows multiple validators to propose blocks in parallel, maximizing network bandwidth and providing resistance to censorship. Additionally, the protocol requires only three rounds of messaging to commit blocks from the Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG), matching the minimum theoretical requirement and paralleling pBFT. The commit rule permits parallel voting and block leader certification, further reducing both median and tail latency. It also tolerates unavailable leaders without significantly increasing commit latency.

Before the Sui mainnet launch, Mysticeti was tested on the testnet for three months, achieving significant results, including an 80% reduction in latency. Now, the Sui network can handle tens of thousands of transactions per second, with end-to-end latency well below one second.

The Sui blockchain also employs a specific type of Proof of Stake consensus known as Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS). When complex transactions involving shared objects occur, Sui uses the Narwhal & Bullshark consensus engines to order these transactions. Compared to other BFT consensus mechanisms used by blockchains, Sui’s consensus has the following pros and cons:

Advantages:

• Low Latency and High Throughput: The Mysticeti protocol significantly reduces consensus latency and improves network throughput by proposing blocks in parallel and optimizing messaging processes. This enables the Sui blockchain to handle tens of thousands of transactions per second with end-to-end latency well below one second.
• Censorship Resistance: Mysticeti allows multiple validators to propose blocks in parallel, enhancing the network’s resistance to censorship.
• Tolerance for Unavailable Leaders: The commit rule allows for tolerance of unavailable leaders (when a leader node fails, the system automatically elects a new leader), without significantly increasing commit latency.

Disadvantages:

• Complexity: The design of the Mysticeti protocol is relatively complex and requires a deeper technical understanding to fully grasp its operational mechanisms.
• Security: While the Mysticeti protocol has performed well on the testnet, its security needs further validation in real-world applications.
• Scalability: The scalability of the Mysticeti protocol still requires further observation to ensure it can adapt to the growing scale of the network and transaction volume in the future.

2.3 Account Abstraction

Sui’s Account Abstraction model is a mechanism that allows users to manage their accounts and transactions in a simpler and more secure way. It abstracts account and transaction logic from the underlying blockchain protocol, enabling higher-level account management and transaction processing.

In Sui’s Account Abstraction model, accounts are no longer simple public-private key pairs but are instead objects with richer attributes and behaviors. Each account has a unique identifier, known as an Account ID, associated with the account’s public and private key pair.

The key components of Sui’s Account Abstraction model include:

1. Account Object: The fundamental unit of accounts in Sui. Each account object has a unique Account ID and contains the account’s attributes and behaviors.
2. Account Data: The core component of the account object, including the account’s basic information such as Account ID, public key, and private key pair.
3. Transaction Context: The fundamental unit of transactions in Sui. It includes transaction-related information such as Transaction ID, Account ID, and transaction data.
4. Account Logic: A collection of behaviors and rules that define how accounts process transactions and manage their state.

Sui’s Account Abstraction model processes transactions through the following steps:

1. Transaction Creation: The user creates a transaction and sends it to the Sui network.
2. Transaction Verification: The Sui network verifies the validity and integrity of the transaction.
3. Account Lookup: The Sui network looks up the corresponding account object based on the Account ID in the transaction.
4. Account Logic Execution: The Sui network executes the account logic to process the transaction and update the account state.
5. Transaction Confirmation: The Sui network confirms the transaction results and records them on the blockchain.

In simple terms, Sui’s Account Abstraction model is an innovative mechanism that simplifies account management and transaction processing, making applications more user-friendly.

2.4 Gaming

For a blockchain to stand out, it must build and accumulate a strong foundation. The reason I described Move as a bold attempt earlier is twofold: first, in an era dominated by the modular concept, native Move-based blockchains (like the Move twin stars) represent one of the final attempts at Layer 1, essentially going against the tide. However, the recent rise of various heterogeneous chains might be proving that modularity isn’t the only answer. Second, the decision to rebuild a blockchain using a new programming language is akin to trying to create a new operating system to compete with iOS and Android in today’s mobile market — an endeavor bound to be challenging. Whether Move-based blockchains can shine like Solana in the coming years will largely depend on their chosen development paths. For Sui, the answer to this challenge is gaming.

Gaming is one of the key entry points for Web3, yet most blockchains do not support gaming well. This is because blockchains were primarily designed with finance in mind, and their decentralized architecture is inherently low-performance, making them unsuitable for gaming. However, Sui is different. Its model is well-suited for both DeFi applications and non-financial applications, including gaming. As mentioned earlier, in Sui, everything is treated as an object. In games or applications with hierarchical complex assets, Sui allows one object to own other objects (assets can own assets). For example, in a hero character game, the hero might have an inventory containing other digital assets belonging to that character. Sui can accurately model these data hierarchies in ways that other blockchains cannot, allowing developers to build applications without having to work around the fundamental limitations of the chain.

Additionally, Sui has been actively collaborating with traditional Web2 giants. Last year, it established partnerships with three of the four major South Korean gaming giants (Netmarble, NHN, and NCSoft). This year, Sui has partnered with TikTok to develop blockchain games and SocialFi projects, bringing traditional giants into Web2.

3. Aptos

Aptos, another Layer 1 blockchain based on the Move language, is similarly focused on building a high-performance, scalable Web3 infrastructure. Its architectural design shares many similarities with Sui, but also showcases some unique features.

3.1 Architecture

1. Modular Design: Aptos employs a modular architecture, allowing developers to independently develop and upgrade different modules, thereby improving development speed and flexibility.
2. Parallel Execution Engine (Block-STM): Unlike other blockchains that require pre-declared data dependencies, Aptos’s parallel execution engine processes transactions in parallel without needing to know the data locations in advance, thereby increasing throughput and reducing latency.
3. Pipelined Transaction Processing: Aptos divides transaction processing into multiple stages such as propagation, metadata ordering, and batch storage. These stages are executed in parallel using a pipelined approach, maximizing throughput and minimizing latency.
4. Move Programming Language: Aptos uses the Move programming language. Unlike Sui’s innovations, Aptos has focused more on refining it, such as standardizing the language, introducing more powerful function support, and customization capabilities.
5. Flexible State Synchronization: This allows nodes to choose different state synchronization strategies, such as syncing the full history or just the latest state, thereby increasing node flexibility.
6. AptosBFT Consensus Mechanism: AptosBFT is the Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) consensus mechanism used by Aptos. It improves throughput and reduces latency by optimizing communication and synchronization between validators. Compared to Sui, it can be seen as an improved version of DiemBFT, with certain enhancements in efficiency and crash recovery, so it will only be briefly mentioned here.

Aptos’s architectural design enables it to handle a large number of concurrent transactions while maintaining high speed, low fees, and security. Additionally, the Move language and Aptos framework provide developers with powerful tools to build secure, scalable, and user-friendly applications.

3.2 Block-STM

Here, we’ll expand on Aptos’s core innovation, the parallel execution engine Block-STM:

Core Principles of Block-STM:

1. Preset Sequential Execution: Block-STM relies on the preset sequence of transactions within a block. All transactions must be executed in this order to ensure the consistency of the final state.
2. Optimistic Concurrency Control: Block-STM optimistically executes transactions in parallel, assuming no conflicts will occur. Optimistic concurrency control is based on the assumption that “conflicts are rare,” allowing transactions to access and modify data without locking. It presumes that the probability of multiple transactions conflicting simultaneously is low, so modifications can proceed, and conflicts, if any, are checked before the final commit.
3. Multi-Version Data Structures: To support optimistic concurrency control, Block-STM uses multi-version data structures to store data. Each write operation creates a new data version, while read operations access the corresponding data version.
4. Validation and Retry: After executing a transaction, Block-STM validates whether the data versions read are still valid. If validation fails, indicating a conflict, the transaction is marked invalid and re-executed.
5. Collaborative Scheduling: Block-STM uses a collaborative scheduler to coordinate the execution and validation tasks of various threads to maximize parallelism.

Workflow of Block-STM:

1. Transaction Grouping: Transactions within a block are grouped and assigned to different threads for parallel execution.
2. Optimistic Execution: Each thread optimistically executes the transactions assigned to it and records each transaction’s read and write sets.
3. Validation: Once a thread completes a transaction’s execution, it validates whether the data versions in the read set are still valid.
4. Retry: If validation fails, indicating a conflict, the transaction is marked invalid and re-executed.
5. Commit: Once all transactions pass validation, the results are written to the blockchain state, completing the transaction commit.

Advantages of Block-STM:

• High Throughput: By utilizing optimistic concurrency control and collaborative scheduling, Block-STM can fully leverage multi-core processors’ performance, achieving high throughput.
• Low Latency: Because transactions can be executed in parallel, Block-STM significantly reduces transaction confirmation time.
• Security: Block-STM’s preset sequential execution and validation mechanisms ensure the consistency and security of the final state.

In simple terms, Block-STM is an efficient parallel transaction execution engine that combines optimistic concurrency control, multi-version data structures, and collaborative scheduling techniques to maximize blockchain throughput while ensuring security and correctness.

3.3 Account Abstraction

Unlike Sui’s more straightforward approach to account abstraction, Aptos supports a more limited degree of abstraction and lacks specific predefined standards. Its account abstraction capabilities are mainly reflected in the following aspects:

1. Modular Account Management: Using Move modules to define and manage accounts, developers can create custom modules to implement different account types and functionalities.
2. Flexible Key Management: Allows users to use different keys for different operations on the account, such as using one key for transaction signing and another for account management.
3. Programmable Transaction Verification: Developers can define custom transaction verification logic within Move modules, such as multi-signature and spending limits, to meet different application scenarios.

3.4 Collaboration with Microsoft

Unlike Sui, which is more focused on game development, Aptos does not have a specific development goal, instead branding itself as the most production-ready blockchain. One noteworthy point is Aptos’s ongoing collaboration with Microsoft, aiming to integrate Microsoft’s AI technology into blockchain. Their first collaborative product, Aptos Assistant, has already launched on the official website, which is a generative AI assistant built on the Aptos network. Further AI products are expected to be released in the coming months.

4. The Move Ecosystem

Although Sui has performed well recently, compared to EVM-based chains and heterogeneous chains like Solana and Ton, the rise of the Move ecosystem still requires time to mature. Despite the star power of Sui and Aptos and their technological breakthroughs, the overall size and activity level of the Move ecosystem still lag behind more established ecosystems. The number of developers, types of applications, and user base all need time to grow. From external collaborations to operations, both projects exhibit a strong Web2 mindset, lacking some Web3 genes, and their various partnership projects have remained relatively lukewarm within the industry.

However, considering the potential of the Move ecosystem, there are many areas worth exploring. Some developers have already noticed Move’s future value. As mentioned in the introduction, there are already projects bringing Move into the ETH Layer 2 ecosystem, and the Move ecosystem will likely shine within the ETH Layer 2 space in the future. The current focus should be on how to bring the Move ecosystem into the spotlight.

About YBB

YBB is a web3 fund dedicating itself to identify Web3-defining projects with a vision to create a better online habitat for all internet residents. Founded by a group of blockchain believers who have been actively participated in this industry since 2013, YBB is always willing to help early-stage projects to evolve from 0 to 1.We value innovation, self-driven passion, and user-oriented products while recognizing the potential of cryptos and blockchain applications.

Website | Twi: @YBBCapital

References:

• A comparison of Aptos and Sui: Cryptotvplus
• Nansen: Detailed explanation of the technical features and ecosystem status of the star public chain Aptos: Foresight News
• Aptos Documentation: Aptos Dev
• Sui Official Documentation: Sui Docs
• Understanding Sui and How It Works: Medium