Binance Labs Backs Mysten Labs in Series B Funding to Drive the Development of Layer-1 Infrastructure

Main Takeaways:

• Binance Labs continues to focus on supporting and investing in promising Web3 infrastructure projects. It recently announced its participation in a Series B funding round for Mysten Labs.

• Mysten Labs is developing Sui, a permissionless layer-1 blockchain that is horizontally scalable to support a wider range of dApp development with high speed and low cost.

• Mysten Labs was founded by former executives of Meta’s Novi Research and lead architects of the Diem blockchain and the Move programming language.

Binance Labs, the venture capital arm and accelerator of Binance, announced its participation in a $300 million Series B funding round for Mysten Labs, the developer of Sui, a proof-of-stake and permissionless layer-1 blockchain. The funds will be used to further build out the core infrastructure of Sui and accelerate the adoption of the Sui ecosystem.

Mysten Labs was launched in 2021 by former executives of Meta’s Novi Research and lead architects of the Diem blockchain and the Move programming language. The company’s inaugural product, Sui, focuses on innovations in consensus algorithms and leverages unique data structures that support a high-performance layer-1 blockchain.

He Yi, Co-Founder of Binance and Head of Binance Labs, said: “We expect that one should be able to use blockchain-native products seamlessly in the future. However, there’s still a technical bottleneck. Binance Labs will focus on investing in infrastructure projects that offer innovative solutions to tackle this challenge. Mysten Labs is developing a proof-of-stake blockchain with horizontally scalable throughput and storage. We look forward to seeing the team create foundational infrastructure to help accelerate the adoption of Web3.” 

Sui ensures expandable capacity and delivers a development environment for rich, dynamic, and composable assets that can be stored directly on chain. These innovations enable Sui to scale its throughput and storage horizontally to meet application demand, while maintaining low operating costs per transaction. Its novel properties include but are not limited to:

• Sui uses the Move programming language to define assets (i.e. a NFT instance, a coin balance, a smart contract) as distinct objects. It makes clear whether an object is owned, shared, mutable or immutable. This design allows for a complete and cryptographically auditable view of the system’s state and history. 

• Sui’s architecture allows multiple groups of transactions to be processed in parallel. The network can horizontally scale throughput without a theoretical upper bound.

• Sui adopts the cutting-edge Narwhal & Bullshark consensus protocol, which separates transaction dissemination from sequencing and can achieve unrivaled performance. On Sui, storage fees are paid separately from transaction execution. Its gas mechanism allows for low and predictable gas fees while incentivizing validators to optimize transaction processing and prevent DDoS attacks. 

Evan Cheng, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Mysten Labs, commented: “The Binance brand is synonymous with crypto globally, and the Labs team has established itself as a go-to partner helping innovative projects grow and flourish. This new funding will enable Mysten to continue to scale Sui, and we are grateful for the support from blue-chip investors who are aligned in our mission to unlock the ownership economy and bring digital assets to the masses.”

Sam Blackshear, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Mysten Labs and the creator of the Move language, said: “Sui marries the safe asset-centric features of Move with a new object-centric data model. Binance Labs’ backing is a strong endorsement of the power of this pairing and its potential to reshape existing blockchain infrastructure.”

Alex Odagiu, Investment Director at Binance Labs, added: “By design, Sui can effectively scale the network throughput infinitely to meet the demand of Web3 builders and creators. The team has taken a leap forward by introducing a new object-centric data model, parallelized agreements, and a highly efficient state tracking design. We look forward to continuously supporting Mysten Labs as they develop a next-generation layer-1 infrastructure for Web3 builders.”

About Binance Labs 

Since 2018, Binance Labs has invested in more than 200 projects from over 25 countries. It has also incubated about 50 goal projects that are native to Web3 via the Binance Labs Incubation Program, including Polygon, Perpetual Protocol, Dune Analytics, and more. As the venture capital arm and accelerator of Binance, Binance Labs is on the continued lookout for the next big Web3 innovation.

For more information, follow Binance Labs on Twitter.

About Mysten Labs

Mysten Labs is founded by former senior executives of Meta’s Novi Research and lead architects of the Diem blockchain and the Move programming language. The team specializes in distributed systems, programming languages, cryptography, and more. The mission of Mysten Labs is to create foundational infrastructure for Web3.

To learn more, please click here.

About Sui

Sui is the first layer-1 blockchain designed from the ground up to enable creators and developers to build experiences that cater for the next billion users in crypto. Developed by Mysten Labs, Sui is horizontally scalable to support a wide range of dApp development with unrivaled speed at low cost. The first-of-its-kind platform brings users a general-purpose blockchain with high throughput, instant settlement speeds, rich on-chain assets, and user-friendly Web3 experiences.

To learn more, please click here or refer to this white paper.