How Sui Works ?

This document has two main goals: It first provides a high-level overview of Sui, presenting its main functionalities and design choices. It then compares Sui with existing blockchains allowing potential adopters to decide whether Sui fits their use cases.

This document is written for engineers, developers, and technical readers knowledgeable about the crypto space. It does not assume deep programming language or distributed systems expertise. See the Sui white paper for a much deeper explanation of how Sui works. See How Sui Differs from Other Blockchains for a high-level overview of the differences in approach between Sui and other blockchain systems.

The Sui blockchain operates at a speed and scale previously thought unimaginable. Sui assumes the typical blockchain transaction is a simple transfer and optimizes for that use. Sui does this by making each request idempotent, holding network connections open longer, and ensuring transactions complete immediately. Sui optimizes for single-writer objects, allowing a design that forgoes consensus for simple transactions.

Instead of the traditional blockchain’s fire-and-forget broadcast, Sui ensures a two-way handshake between the requestor and approving validators, with simple transactions having near instant finality. With this low latency, transactions can easily be incorporated into games and other settings that need completion in real time. Furthermore, Sui supports smart contracts written in Move, a language designed for blockchains with strong inherent security and a more understandable programming model.

In a world where the cost of bandwidth is diminishing steadily, we are creating an ecosystem of services that will find it easy, fun, and perhaps profitable to ensure transaction voting on behalf of users.