$SUI This project is quite unique in the crypto circle, and its various expressions exude a strong individuality.
First, let's talk about the people behind Sui, Mysten Labs. The CEO of this company, Evan Cheng, is quite a character who grew up in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. He joined Apple in 2005 and then moved to Facebook in 2017, where he became the Director of Programming Language Engineering, leading a group of cryptocurrency enthusiasts in the company. Later, he became the head of the Libra development team and launched the Move language. Several co-founders of Mysten Labs, like Adeniyi Abiodun and Sam Blackshear, also came from Facebook's Libra project. With a background from major companies and significant projects, Sui naturally inherited many good things.
The first highlight of Sui is its relentless focus on the gaming sector. Adeniyi mentioned in an interview with Grayscale this month: "We chose the gaming industry because it always adopts new technologies first, pushing AI and high-performance computing forward." Sui focuses on solving ownership issues in gaming, which has attracted a large number of game developers, including three major listed companies in Korea: Nhan Net, Marble, FNC, and NCSoft. Currently, about 75 publishers are developing applications on Sui, whereas only 30 studios were signed at this time last year.
Evan Cheng is also constantly promoting their gaming device SuiPlay on Twitter and in videos. In recent weeks, whether regarding SuiPlay or the leading meme FUD on Sui, they have promised rewards and airdrops to SuiPlay holders.
The second characteristic of Sui is its significant emphasis on compliance. The Web3 community advocates decentralization and a culture of permissionless interaction, and most Web3 institutions do not take compliance seriously. But Sui is an exception; the compliance processes within Mysten Labs are as strict as those of large Web2 companies. An entrepreneur in the Sui ecosystem said, "Sui grants are in USD, not Sui tokens, and he was stunned at the time." Moreover, Sui officially requires a lot of complicated paperwork, KYC, and accounts, often making people wait a long time to receive grants.
People in the Sui ecosystem almost all mention Sui's emphasis on compliance. This may be related to Sui's strategic direction. One practitioner said he believes that those projects recognized by Sui, such as Cetus and Scallop, do not need to worry about running away; Sui will back them up.
This is quite different from the strategies of many public chains. For example, Blast clearly tells users that they take no responsibility if any project in their ecosystem encounters problems. Sui and Blast are two extremes; Blast is completely unaccountable, while Sui strictly enforces compliance, leaving some developers with the impression that as long as the project is recognized by Sui, users do not need to worry too much about being rugged.
Behind this is actually a strategic issue. The third characteristic of Sui is its focus on collaborating with large Web2 institutions to achieve mass adoption. Many traditional large institutions do not allow partnerships with entities that have blemishes, which is a must-do in the traditional world.
This also explains some phenomena, such as Sui and its three founders almost never engage in the CX Meme approach, which seems a bit out of place. Because the founders of Base and Solana, like Jesse and Toly, guide and support meme culture. But Sui does not or does so rarely; it does not want its actions to include behaviors that could be seen as blemishes by traditional institutions, thereby affecting its opportunities for cooperation with large institutions.
Sui's differentiated development is also quite interesting. It aims for compliance in the U.S. and collaborates deeply with globally recognized gaming companies. Interestingly, most of its leading DeFi projects are run by Chinese entrepreneurs, such as Cetus and Scallop. A Sui ecosystem entrepreneur named Chen told me that he observed that 70% to even 80% of DeFi projects are run by Chinese entrepreneurs.
Chen believes this may be related to Sui's clear development direction. Once a system clarifies its development direction, Chinese entrepreneurs often excel in speed and efficiency compared to European and American teams.
Chen also discussed the comparison between Sui and other Move-based public chains. Currently, there are over 20 public chains based on the Move language, three of which come directly from the Facebook team, namely Aptos, Sui, and Linera. Among the Move-based public chains, Sui and Aptos are the most important, and they are vying for the leading position of Move public chains, so developers often compare these two public chains together.
Chen said, "From my personal subjective perspective, Sui's official tweets often provide updates on technical and product functionality directions, whereas Aptos seems to do this less and focuses more on event-related content. This seems to be a small difference between Sui and Aptos."
Sui has a very clear goal: to focus on gaming and collaborate with large Web2 companies. However, even if you are a non-gaming, non-large institution entrepreneur in the Sui ecosystem, you need not worry about developing successfully on Sui. Chen is an example; he believes this is because Sui's founding team has a clear development direction, rather than being inconsistent, allowing builders in the ecosystem to feel confused. Many public chains nowadays lack a clear direction, making practitioners feel lost. But it seems that there are no such concerns on Sui.
Some practitioners feel that Sui is a public chain with very clear goals. This is quite different from those public chains that lack a clear differentiation in development direction. This characteristic seems to have brought about many different changes in the Sui ecosystem.
Sui's first year is focused on developing DeFi; in the future, it will follow the route of collaborating with large Web2 institutions; going forward, it will continue to concentrate on gaming; and it will also aim to be the most compliant public chain. An industry insider summarized the development roadmap of the Sui ecosystem as concise, focused, and clear.
