Is Sui The Next Solana? An Outage Overview

On Thursday 21 November, the layer-1 blockchain network Sui was down for over two hours. According to developers, there was a bug in the network’s scheduling logic, which shut down its block production. It was the network’s first-ever outage.

While the price of SUI momentarily dropped following this disruption, it quickly recovered and jumped back to previous price points after service restoration. This is an unusual market behavior because major outages are generally followed by notable price declines. However, Sui’s community engagement seems to have strengthened due to its ability to restore the network effectively in a short window.

A similar incident also occurred on the Solana network earlier this year. In February, Solana suffered a major outage, yet its prices surged significantly after recovery. With Sui also hitting record prices in the current bull market, the key question springs up: Is SUI the next Solana? 

What is Sui?

Sui is a layer-1 blockchain platform engineered for high-speed, low-latency transactions, making it suitable for real-time applications such as gaming and decentralized finance (DeFi). The network was developed by Mysten Labs, a company founded by former Meta engineers. Sui uses the Move programming language, which emphasizes security and efficiency in smart contract development.

A key feature of Sui is its object-centric data model, which allows for parallel transaction processing. This design enables the network to handle multiple transactions simultaneously, significantly enhancing throughput and scalability.

Sui operates on a delegated proof-of-stake (DPoS) consensus mechanism, where token holders delegate their stakes to validators responsible for transaction verification and network security. The platform’s native token, SUI, serves multiple functions, including paying for gas fees, participating in the DPoS consensus, and facilitating on-chain governance.

Sui vs Solana: Comparing performance

According to DefilLama data, Sui’s total value locked (TVL) currently stands at $1.62billion. This is a major growth, as the network only had around $220m worth of assets. This makes Sui the eighth-largest blockchain network, overtaking major platforms like Polygon and Avalanche.

Solana’s TVL has also surged this year, driven by the meme coin craze. The network currently has over $8.5bn in assets locked, making it the second-largest blockchain after Ethereum. While Solana’s dominance is persistent, Sui has demonstrated unprecedented growth and resilience.

This performance has also been reflected in SUI’s price. The altcoin is up by 85% this month, and over 500% in a year. This is notably higher than Solana’s YTD (year-to-date) growth, despite SOL hitting its highest price in over three years and nearing a new all-time high.

Why has SUI gone up in 2024?

Sui’s ecosystem has grown rapidly this year, attracting developers and projects. Notably, Grayscale Investments launched the Grayscale Sui Trust, providing institutional investors with exposure to SUI.

The network implemented the Mysticeti consensus protocol, reducing consensus time to 390 milliseconds and enabling faster transactions. This upgrade enhances the network’s scalability and efficiency.

Also, daily active addresses on Sui peaked at 900,000, indicating growing user engagement. This surge reflects heightened interest and participation in the network.

Most importantly, approximately 49% of Ethereum’s capital outflows have been redirected to Sui, highlighting its appeal as an alternative blockchain platform. These developments have collectively driven SUI’s significant price increase, reflecting strong market confidence in the platform’s potential.

Key differences between Solana and Sui

Sui and Solana are both high-performance Layer-1 blockchain platforms, but they differ significantly in architecture, consensus mechanisms, programming languages, and scalability strategies.

1. Consensus mechanism

• Sui: Uses a DPoS mechanism. It employs a Byzantine Consensus (Narwhal and Tusk) for complex transactions but bypasses consensus for independent, object-specific transactions. This design enables parallel transaction execution, optimizing scalability and throughput.
• Solana: Employs Proof of History (PoH) combined with Proof of Stake (PoS). PoH timestamps transactions before consensus, enabling high-speed and sequential processing.

2. Transaction processing

• Sui: Adopts an object-centric model, allowing parallel transaction execution. Transactions that do not involve the same object or data structure can execute simultaneously, increasing throughput for specific workloads.
• Solana: Operates on a global state model with sequential transaction execution. While optimized for high throughput, this approach can face bottlenecks under certain workloads.

3. Programming language

• Sui: Utilizes the Move programming language, originally developed for Meta’s Diem project. Move emphasizes safety, allowing fine-grained control over digital assets and reducing vulnerabilities in smart contracts.
• Solana: Uses Rust and C, offering flexibility and performance but with a steeper learning curve and higher potential for errors in smart contract development.

4. Network scalability

• Sui: Scales horizontally by adding more nodes to handle parallel transactions. Its architecture inherently supports efficient resource utilization and low transaction costs, even under high demand.
• Solana: Relies on vertical scaling, optimizing high-performance hardware requirements. This results in higher costs for validators and could limit decentralization.

5. Decentralization

• Sui: Promotes decentralization through its delegated staking model and object-centric approach, which does not require every node to process every transaction.
• Solana: Faces decentralization challenges due to its need for high-spec hardware, which can limit validator participation.

6. Focus use cases

• Sui: Designed for real-time, high-frequency use cases like gaming, DeFi, and social media applications, leveraging its parallel execution capabilities.
• Solana: Excels in DeFi and NFT marketplaces with its high throughput but sequential transaction design.

The bottom line

While it’s challenging to say whether Sui will overtake Solana, given its wider DeFi ecosystem and appeal for meme coins, Sui is likely to become one of the largest blockchain networks in 2025. If DeFi activity continuous to increase on the network, Sui will challenge Ethereum’s dominance in the blockchain space.

Overall in a bull market, SUI will likely remain a strong altcoin, rivaling Solana’s growth and Ethereum’s persistent dominance.