The innovative and rapidly growing Sui blockchain has introduced groundbreaking concepts to the Layer 1 ecosystem, positioning itself as a formidable competitor to more established networks. Its unique approach to scalability, security, and user accessibility makes Sui a rising star in the blockchain landscape.
In this guide, we’ll explore what sets the Sui blockchain apart, how it operates, and why it has captured the attention of the crypto community. You'll also discover its key applications, exciting use cases, and how to engage with Sui through Magic Eden.
The Sui blockchain is a permissionless Layer 1 network designed to deliver high speed, scalability, and low transaction fees to the Web3 ecosystem.
Developed by Mysten Labs, Sui is the brainchild of a team of former Meta engineers who previously worked on Facebook’s Diem (formerly Libra) project. The team includes Evan Cheng, Sam Blackshear, Adeniyi Abiodun, George Danezis, and Kostas Chalkias.
With their combined expertise, the team devised an innovative approach to handle high transaction volumes with minimal latency, setting Sui apart as a next-generation blockchain.
As Mysten Labs’ flagship project, Sui prioritizes relevant data processing instead of processing transactions one after the other - which leads to speedier transactions.
Among Sui blockchain’s other breakthrough innovations and features are the utilization of the Move smart contract programming language, delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) consensus mechanism, zkLogin deployment, advanced parallel transaction processing and the Mysticeti consensus protocol - just to name a few.
These are designed to make the network scalable and efficient. Hence, it’s optimal if you’re developing decentralized applications (dApps) that involve non-fungible tokens (NFTs), GameFi and decentralized finance (DeFi).
So, let’s peek at its most important components and innovations.
Move is a blockchain-agnostic smart contract programming language derived from Rust. Initially created for the Diem blockchain, it should help you generate smart contracts and digital assets more easily and safely than with many other languages.
Built around programmable “objects” specific to the Sui blockchain, Move allows you to craft custom rules for these objects and define how they can be transferred. Therefore, this makes the programming of assets easier for NFTs and gaming.
Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) is the consensus mechanism employed by the Sui blockchain to validate on-chain transactions. In this system, SUI token holders delegate their tokens to specific validators, effectively assigning their voting power to these entities. Validators with higher delegated stakes gain increased voting power, enabling them to process transactions and participate in consensus protocols.Validators earn rewards from gas fees, which are the fees users pay to make a transaction on Sui. The rewards are shared with those who staked their SUI, and the validator takes a commission fee. This structure incentivizes both validators and delegators to maintain and enhance network performance. The DPoS mechanism is potentially more scalable and able to reduce latency. You can read more about delegated proof of stake on Sui’s documentation.
zkLogin is an innovative authentication tool on the Sui blockchain that simplifies user interaction with decentralized applications (dApps) by enabling sign-ins using familiar web credentials from providers like Google, Facebook, and Twitch. Developers can implement "invisible wallets”, allowing users to make transactions without impacting the user experience.
Currently, zkLogin supports several OpenID OAuth providers, including Google, Twitch, Facebook, Apple, Karrier One, Credenza3, and Amazon Web Services (enabled per tenant), with plans to expand support to additional providers in the future.
You can read more on Sui’s zkLogin features here.
With its unique parallel transaction execution, Sui takes transaction processing to a whole new level. Considering it can theoretically handle up to 297,000 transactions per second (TPS), such an approach also theoretically places it ahead of numerous other participants in the blockchain space.
The magic behind the scenes is done through specific algorithms that grant near-immediate approval for transactions. That said, it is applicable only when transacting owned objects, which is one of the several ways in which objects in Sui can be categorized.
Notably, owned objects refer to Sui objects accessible only by their owner (a specific 32-byte address that is either a user account address or an object ID). The other category is shared objects, accessible by anyone, but requiring additional effort to secure this access.
Mysticeti is a Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) consensus protocol developed for the Sui blockchain, utilizing a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) structure to achieve a near instantaneous transaction finality in approximately 390 milliseconds.
Building upon the Narwhal and Tusk consensus algorithms, Mysticeti reduces latency and enhances throughput, enabling Sui to process tens of thousands of transactions per second with latencies well below one second. This performance is particularly beneficial for applications requiring rapid transaction processing, such as gaming and high-frequency decentralized finance (DeFi) trading.
The Kiosk system on the Sui blockchain is a decentralized framework designed for commerce applications, utilizing a novel object type known as Kiosks. Each Kiosk is a shared object managed by individual owners who store their assets within it. This system enables users to list these assets for sale and implement custom trading functionalities, such as auctions.
This part of the Sui framework increases decentralization, helps secure ownership of assets until the point of purchase and supports creators’ custom policies for every trade, in addition to indexing and subscribing options for events emitted by the Kiosk object.You can learn more about Sui Kiosk from their documentation here.
The native token of the Sui blockchain is SUI. You can use it for staking, governance, access to the network’s functionalities and more.
Furthermore, the network’s architects have capped SUI’s total supply to 10 billion tokens, distributed across investors, contributors, developers and the rest of the community, in the following way:
You can get your own SUI tokens in various ways, including buying them on a supported crypto exchange, earning rewards as a validator by staking SUI tokens and verifying transactions, building dApps on the platform and staking SUI tokens to support validators, receiving rewards in return.
Sui blockchain is already being used across many applications, most notable in DeFi, gaming and interoperability.
In Sui’s growing DeFi landscape, you’ll find protocols such as DeepBook and Turbos Finance.
DeepBook is a high-throughput and low latency decentralized exchange (DEX), engineered for ~390ms settlement times, low costs and enhanced transparency, while Turbos Finance is a non-custodial decentralized crypto marketplace offering trades and prices through the aggregation of liquidity and market trend discovery.
In the Sui ecosystem, you can also find blockchain games such as SUI 8192 and Blockus.
SUI 8192 is a 100% on-chain and open-source game built by the Ethos team, in which you’re challenged to combine tiles to get a high score and rise through the leaderboard, all verifiable on the blockchain. Blockus is an all-in-one Web3 gaming development platform that allows you to build with ease and speed, thus reducing costs and retaining focus on gameplay.
Sui is also home to several interoperability protocols, including Axelar and Wormhole.
Axelar is a Proof of Stake Web3 protocol facilitating cross-chain communication, allowing you to interact with on-chain assets on different IBC chains and Sui Network in one click. Wormhole is an interoperability protocol that helps you transfer value and information across 18 different blockchains, integrating Sui with other major networks like Ethereum and Solana.
As the home of Web3, Magic Eden supports a range of blockchains and Sui will be added soon. That will allow you to collect Sui NFTs and trade Sui tokens, all in Magic Eden.
On top of that, you can monitor the best performers, explore the lesser-known mints and keep up with the latest drops in the NFT Drops Calendar - all through a user-friendly dashboard with a familiar feel that provides a seamless and convenient experience.
Download the Magic Eden Wallet and get your favorite SUI NFTs.
The SUI blockchain was founded by a company called Mysten Labs, consisting of a team of former engineers who worked on the development of Facebook’s Diem project. These individuals include Evan Cheng, Sam Blackshear, Adeniyi Abiodun, George Danezis and Kostas Chalkias.
Sui makes low latency and scalability possible by prioritizing relevant data processing, decreasing complexities and deploying various methods. These include Move blockchain language, delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) consensus mechanism, zkLogin deployment, advanced parallel transaction processing and more.
Apart from high speeds and exceptional scalability, other advantages of creating on Sui blockchain include true ownership of digital assets on the blockchain and almost immediate transaction settlement. This makes it a great fit for creating dApps for gaming, DeFi, social networking and other use cases.
Like many other Web3 networks, SUI enables smart contract processing, dApp development, token issuance and transaction settlement. However, unlike most conventional blockchains, it brings innovative features that aim to address the issues of scalability, speed and security.
The information provided on this website is provided for general educational purposes only and is in no way financial or investment advice. Certain information may have also been provided to us or prepared by third parties; these materials are provided for convenience and are not an endorsement by Magic Eden. Magic Eden is not liable for any errors, changes or amendments to such information, including any actions taken in reliance on such information.
