SUI: A Web3 Operating System

This extensive conversation, featuring Ian Rogers and Kostas Chalkias, dives into the foundational principles, architectural innovations, and strategic vision behind SUI, a Layer 1 blockchain fully integrated into Ledger Live. The discussion illuminates SUI’s unique approach to scalability, security, and user experience, aiming to onboard billions of users into the blockchain ecosystem.

“Sui is a Japanese word for water…and the whole idea of transactions are [that they’re] flowing; they’re moving very fast and they can fit anywhere”. – Kostas Chalkias 

Key Highlights:

The Philosophy and Engineering Behind SUI

SUI is defined by its core concept and design philosophy. This fluidity translates to parallelization. Sui achieves high speed by processing many transactions at once instead of forcing them into a single-file line.

It identifies transactions that don’t conflict and executes them simultaneously, which avoids the bottlenecks common to other blockchains, making the network extremely fast and efficient. 

Kostas Chalkias’s Journey: From White Hat Hacking to UX-Focused Cryptography

Kostas shares his unique career arc, starting as an AI engineering researcher. His journey into cryptography was prompted by a personal hacking incident, leading him to learn security. He states, 

“I ended up being a white hat hacker for Ethereum Solidity. Most of the attacks that you’ve seen in the past are probably under my umbrella or it was me in particular”. – Kostas Chalkias

Kostas’ work at companies like R3 Corda and Meta (on Libra) reshaped his perspective, making him realize the need to help people understand what they are doing with their assets to attract a broader audience, including the average Instagram user into the blockchain.

The History of SUI: A Team of Industry Veterans

The SUI founding team emerged from the Libra project at Meta. All of the five of the co-founders are former Meta employees who were also successful at various tech giants like Apple and Google. 

The team’s collective experience, particularly from working on projects designed for billions of users, influenced their approach to building SUI for the average person in social networks and unbanked people across the world. 

“Evan (CEO of Mysten Labs), literally cherrypicked the people that he believed can change the future of the blockchains” – Kostas Chalkias

Solving Blockchain’s Core Problems: Developer Adoption, Security, and Scalability

SUI was built to address fundamental challenges hindering broader blockchain adoption:

• Developer Friendliness: The scarcity of blockchain developers compared to traditional programming languages, stating, “we haven’t created languages that were easy for people to learn”.
  
  SUI solved this by creating the SUI Move language, which is object-based (like a Java or a RAS developer)”, making it particularly successful on DeFi and institutions but also gaming because even on games they work with objects.

• Enhanced Security: Move is inherently a more secure language like by design compared to Solidity. SUI was built with cryptographic agility from the very beginning, incorporating extra elements for security.

• Scalability and Speed: SUI boasts fast consensus algorithms, capable of “hundreds of thousands of transactions per second. This focus on being scalable, fast, secure is a core priority.

SUI as a Web3 ‘Operating System’

The SUI team envisions their blockchain as a comprehensive computing platform.

• SUI itself functions as the superfast CPU.
• Walrus (the data storage component of the Sui ecosystem), acts as the “hard disk storage”, addressing the challenge of blockchains being slow or expensive for large data.
• The Move language serves as the operating system’s language.
• Identity solutions are integrated, including zero-knowledge proofs for login systems.
• Scion is being developed to enhance network message transfer, potentially changing the BGP protocol.
• The ultimate goal is to create a full operating system in Web3 with around 7-8 elements working seamlessly like a traditional computer. This enables functionalities like AI on chain as SUI prepares itself to be the platform for machine learning and AI on chain due to its storage capabilities.

Ledger’s Integral Role in SUI’s Ecosystem and User Onboarding

Ledger’s integration with SUI is crucial for broadening user adoption and security.

• Full Integration: SUI has been fully integrated into Ledger Live, allowing users to send and receive, buy, swap, stake, and Clear Sign everything.
• Flexible Authentication: SUI supports various authentication methods based on user comfort and security needs. ZK login using Google, Facebook, or Apple is available for easy onboarding, particularly for gaming companies, providing a blockchain account without custodian dependency. For higher security, SUI supports EDSA (compatible with Ledger’s new and old devices) and ECTSA (for iPhone Enclave users).
• Native Multi-Sig: SUI offers native multisig without penalizing users with higher transaction costs so if you are either using a multisig or you are using a single sig wallet, you are not charged more.
• Layered Security Approach: The partnership offers a full spectrum of security, allowing users to start with basic login and migrate to Ledger as their value and education increases, ideally before they find out the hard way through hacks. Ledger can serve as a second factor for accounts like exchanges or sites like Google, or as the secure storage for private keys. 

Watch the episode here

Future Outlook & Expected Developments

Kostas Chalkias offers insights into expected developments and anticipated applications on SUI:

• Walrus Impact: Walrus is expected to make a huge change as the hard disk of SUI, potentially attracting a few Ethereum projects coming through Walrus and enabling applications like DocuSign on SUI, Netflix on SUI, and Google Docs on SUI.
• Institutional Adoption: Many institutions are anticipated to either hold treasuries on SUI or build some on a large scale on top of SUI. Its zero-knowledge proofs are already being explored by the Greek stock market for their assets.
• Randomness Beacon Utilization: SUI is expected to be used increasingly in matchmaking for gaming, gambling industry, sports industry, and even governmental applications like social housing distribution.
• AI and Machine Learning on Chain: SUI is preparing to be the platform for machine learning and AI on chain due to its solved storage problem, allowing for the upload of vast learning models into the chain.
• New Application Paradigms: Beyond current applications, the combination of SUI and Walrus (an L1 with a storage layer) is expected to enable completely new applications that are currently unforeseen, such as a slot machine on SUI with zero latency or even a streaming platform on SUI.

Reading List

• What is SUI?
• SUI on Ledger Live
• What is an L1?