Over the past three months to October 2024, no cryptocurrency among the top 100 has outperformed layer one (L1) blockchain Sui’s (SUI) native token.
SUI has risen about 180% over the last 90 days to reach within touching distance of all-time high levels as of October 8. The price surge has helped the crypto project founded by former Meta (Facebook) engineers become the 18th largest cryptocurrency in the world.
What is Sui crypto? Why has the SUI token price been pumping in 2024? Let’s find out.
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Why is Sui Being Called ‘the Next Solana’?
Sui is an L1 blockchain developed by Mysten Labs, a company co-founded by former Meta employees Evan Cheng, Sam Blackshear, Adeniyi Abiodun, Kostas Chalkias and George Danezis.
The quintet were part of the team at Meta responsible for developing the Diem (formerly “Libra”) crypto project and Novi digital wallet.
The Diem project was shut down and sold to Silvergate Bank in 2022 after it faced opposition from U.S. lawmakers.
Speaking directly with Techopedia, Mysten Labs’ Evan Cheng explained the protocol’s recent successes, noting that one of the key features that distinguishes the Sui protocol from others is its “object-oriented architecture,” which fundamentally transforms how assets are created, managed, and transacted on-chain.
Made to Scale: The Move Programming Language
While working at Meta, Sui co-founder and CTO Blackshear led a team as principal engineer to create a smart contract programming language called Move.
The Move programming language is now being used to develop the Sui blockchain. This is one of the major differences between Sui and other leading L1 blockchains like Solana, which uses Rust, and Ethereum, which uses Solidity for programming smart contracts.
Chen explained:
“Move was designed from the ground up to support large-scale decentralized applications. Its object orientation and parallelized execution enable developers to create high-performance applications that can scale horizontally by simply adding computing power, with no upper limit on throughput.”
According to Viktor Santiago, a crypto researcher at the Netherlands-based digital asset fund Cyber Capital, Move is an object-oriented language designed to allow more efficient and flexible parallel transaction processing.
He said:
“Move represents interactions amongst objects – best understood as assets rather than accounts. Owned objects can be modified or transferred without interacting with other parts of state.
“This allows the system to filter for potential conflicts at the asset level, categorizing them as either shared or owned objects, providing a more efficient and flexible foundation for parallel processing.”
Sui’s Approach to Solana’s Parallel Transaction Processing
Parallel processing is an execution model pioneered by Solana that allows thousands of transactions to be processed simultaneously. This is a key feature that helps Solana stand out as a high-performance blockchain known for its scalability.
Newer L1 blockchains like Aptos (APT), Sei (SEI) and Sui have replicated this model to take advantage of its performance. However, Sui takes a varied approach to parallel processing.
Aptos and Sei implement optimistic parallelization, where the protocol assumes that all transactions are independent of each other and attempts to execute transactions in parallel.
In the event of a conflict, transactions are re-executed. This model prioritizes simplicity and scalability.
In contrast, Sui implements deterministic parallelization (better known as state-access parallelization) where the protocol preorders non-conflicting transactions before executing to avoid rollbacks. Although Sui’s approach requires more time and effort from network validators, it results in more predictable outcomes.
In July 2024, Sui rolled out a new consensus protocol named Mysticeti to support the network’s parallel transaction processing model by reducing transaction latency and lowering CPU requirements for validators.
Mysticeti was a key innovation within the Sui protocol, having managed to reduce network latency by 80% and time to consensus to less than 400 milliseconds.
Tim Kravchunovsky, the CEO and founder of the decentralized telecommunications network Chirp, which is built on Sui, added that the Mysticeti upgrade made the protocol “the fastest blockchain in the DeFi space”.
This is further highlighted by Sui’s high throughput, which is over 10,000 transactions per second (TPS). In comparison, Solana recorded a maximum throughput of 7,229 TPS, data on Chainspect showed.
Chirp’s Kravchunovsky suggested that Sui’s superiority to Solana is highlighted in how the protocol handles parallel transaction execution and resource management.
This allows developers to build scalable, decentralised apps without the congestion issues that Solana tends to experience from time to time.
Sui’s Base Layer Tech A Primary Differentiator
Overall, Sui’s base layer technology seems to be a primary factor in developers’ choosing this protocol over others available on the market.
Chen highlighted that Sui takes developer experience to another level, with Move being a much easier programming language developers can learn over Rust or Solidity.
He explained:
“Sui’s zkLogin feature allows users to sign in with familiar credentials like Google or Twitch, breaking down barriers to adoption by making blockchain technology more accessible to mainstream users.
“Likewise sponsored transactions on Sui enable developers to make adoption even easier by removing the hurdle of transaction fees for their users.”
Chirp’s Kravchunovsky added:
“There have been a number of exciting developments for Sui recently. The Mysticeti upgrade, which made it the fastest blockchain in the DeFi space, the integration of the USDC stablecoin, and the SUI-ETH bridge particularly stand out.”
Sui Crypto News: Why is SUI Token Surging in 2024?
At the time of writing, the SUI token was less than 9% away from its all-time high of $2.18, which it reached in late March 2024.
The token has been on an incredible rally of late, surging about 180% over the last 90 days on the back of positive Sui news.
Chirp’s Kravchunovsky noted that following the most recent developments on Sui and the community’s positive feedback, a price target of $15 could be very realistic in the years to come, while $7-$8 would be a more comprehensive estimate.
Grayscale Launches Sui Crypto Fund
Grayscale Investments, the world’s largest crypto asset manager, created a new crypto investment trust in August 2024 to invest solely in the SUI token.
Now, the Grayscale core clientele, which includes fund managers, family offices, ultra-high-net-worth individuals, and accredited investors, can gain exposure to the SUI crypto token via a professionally managed instrument.
So far, the Grayscale SUI Trust has attracted over $2.5 million in investments.
We are proud to announce the creation of two new single-asset crypto investment funds, available through private placement: Grayscale Bittensor Trust $TAO and Grayscale Sui Trust $SUI.
Available to eligible accredited investors.
Press release: https://t.co/Xplh81KI9W
1/3 pic.twitter.com/pGcLhcZSdD
— Grayscale (@Grayscale) August 7, 2024
Sui’s Web3 Devices Draw Parallels with Solana’s Initiatives
In September 2024, Sui’s core developers, Mysten Labs, revealed a Web3-enabled handheld gaming device called the SuiPlayox1, which was developed in collaboration with Playtron.
Sui’s focus on creating crypto devices draws inspiration from Solana’s mobile phone, Saga, which launched in May 2023.
Following Saga’s success, the Solana ecosystem doubled down on its effort and unveiled a Web3 mobile device called Seeker and a handheld crypto gaming device called Play Solana Gen 1 during the Solana Breakpoint conference.
Sui has positioned itself as the go-to blockchain for crypto gaming by introducing primitives such as zklogin and Programmable Transaction Blocks.
The former enables seamless user onboarding to Sui, while the latter allows decentralized applications to process a series of inputs in one go.
🎮 Pre-orders for the #SuiPlay0X1, the first Web3-native mobile gaming device, coming soon 👀
Join the waitlist now: https://t.co/XkD9NoAjuN pic.twitter.com/M9bu1Juy6f
— SuiPlay (@SuiPlay) August 1, 2024
Native USDC Launches on Sui
In mid-September 2024, stablecoin issuer Circle introduced native USDC stablecoin on Sui.
The developments bring USDC — the world’s second-largest stablecoin by market cap and arguably the most compliant stablecoin — to the Sui blockchain.
Since the announcement, Sui’s total value locked (TVL) has increased. As of October 8, it had the seventh-highest TVL among all blockchains, at $1.12 billion.
Only Ethereum (ETH), Tron (TRX), Solana, BNB Chain (BNB), Arbitrum (ARB), and Base had more TVL than Sui.
🧵 Native $USDC is now live on @SuiNetwork!
Sui is a layer-1 blockchain designed for scalability, speed, and affordability and the first using the Move programming language to support native USDC!
Learn how developers are using USDC in the Sui ecosystem. 👇… pic.twitter.com/GcR0ebVP5k
— Circle (@circle) October 8, 2024
Sui Improves Interoperability with Ethereum
In late September 2024, Sui announced that a cross-chain bridge between Sui and Ethereum was live on its mainnet.
The Sui Bridge began operations to support ETH and WETH transfers between Sui and Ethereum.
Before the introduction of the Sui Bridge, Wormhole‘s cross-chain bridge was the only option to move assets between the two blockchains.
Demand for an alternative Sui-to-Ethereum bridge was high as Wormhole Scan data showed that Sui was the most popular destination for cross-chain outflows from Ethereum, accounting for over 52% of all Ethereum outflows over the last 365 days as of October 8, 2024.
The Bottom Line
For crypto enthusiasts, Sui is a notable crypto project to monitor. The emerging L1 network has showcased that it can compete with established chains to attract crypto capital to its ecosystem.
Modern blockchain architecture is an advantage that Sui has over its rivals. However, we have seen in the past that the crypto industry can evolve at an incredibly fast pace while investor attention can shift in the blink of an eye.
For the time being, Sui is enjoying the spotlight.