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Original writer: PAUL VERADITTAKIT
Original translation: Deep Tide TechFlow
Since the birth of Bitcoin, we have witnessed the "L1 War," which has driven the development of cutting-edge technologies to solve the blockchain trilemma. There has always been a demand for highly scalable solutions, as no single solution can meet industry needs while ensuring top-level security. This has led to the emergence of Sui and Aptos, which leverage the architecture of Facebook's abandoned Diem and Novi projects.
Aptos
Aptos Labs, led by Mo Shaikh and Avery Ching (former executives from Diem/Novi), has created the Aptos blockchain, aiming to revive Diem's technology and compete with market leaders such as Ethereum and Bitcoin. Aptos aims to provide flexible, scalable, and secure infrastructure. It leverages Diem's architecture and cutting-edge technology to ensure high throughput, low latency, and verifiable state synchronization.
Sui
Sui, developed by Mysten Labs and managed by former Facebook executives Evan Cheng and Sam Blackshear, aims to address the limitations faced by the current crypto network to meet the needs of massive usage. Unlike Aptos, Sui is not a derivative of Diem but built from scratch, leveraging inherent scalability and fast settlement capabilities. Sui aims to provide high throughput, low latency, and cost-effective computing resources to meet the application needs of billions of users.
Move: Scalability Language
Both of these blockchains use Move, a programming language based on Rust that enables parallel processing. The Move ecosystem includes compilers, virtual machines, and other development tools. Aptos uses the core implementation of this language, while Sui has made slight modifications to better suit its architecture.
Background
Move is a bytecode language used for designing custom transactions and smart contracts. What sets Move apart from other languages like Solidity is its focus on resource management and emphasis on the scarcity and access control of digital assets. Scarcity limits the formation of assets to reduce the risk of double spending, while access control determines ownership and asset access. Move's resource management is based on linear logical mathematics, treating assets as absolute resources that are permanently lost once depleted. This specific nature of resources allows for secure transfer between program storage locations without the need for implicit deletion or duplication, hence the name "Move".
Sui's Changes to Move
While Aptos largely replicates Diem's whitepaper, Sui adds an object-oriented storage system to track addresses and transactions, among other things.
Sui classifies properties as objects, defined as follows:
Shared Objects: mutable, no explicit owner, and can be used in multi-party transactions without authorization.
Owned Objects: have a unique owner and can only be modified by that user.
Read-only Objects: no unique owner, cannot be changed after publication, and can be used by all users in transactions.
Classifying these assets into different domains reduces processing and transaction time, providing scalability for NFTs, game products, and more. This is also the main foundation of Sui in the NFT/game industry.
Sui/Aptos' Consensus Mechanism
Consensus is the process by which blockchain nodes (validators) reach agreement on the validity of transactions and blocks. Both Aptos and Sui are built on the well-recognized concept of Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT). The core principle of consensus mechanisms is that even if up to 1/3 of the validators become malicious or fail, the network can still operate normally.
Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT)
The basic concept of BFT is as follows:
A network consists of validators who collectively hold N voting rights to decide whether to approve a new block.
N usually takes a value of 3 F + 1, and must be able to withstand F validators with voting rights. This means that there can be up to F validators that may be malicious, slow, disconnected, etc.
In each round, a leader is selected in a random and observable manner.
In each cycle, the leader proposes a new block and the rest of the validators vote on it.
As long as there are 2 F + 1 votes from trustworthy validators, they can achieve consensus on a consistent choice.
Task Parallelization Techniques
Aptos' Block-STM
Aptos achieves parallelization through Block-STM, an improvement of the high-performance HotStuff algorithm inspired by software transactional memory. Block-STM identifies relationships between transactions and implements parallel execution. If a transaction fails verification but has dependencies, it can be re-executed; otherwise, it is discarded. Once disputes are resolved using the lazy-commit method, all transactions in a block are simultaneously committed to the blockchain. This approach saves time and resources as transactions no longer need to be processed sequentially.
Sui's Narwhal and Tusk
For complex processes, Sui employs the consensus techniques of Narwhal and Tusk in its execution layer to achieve parallelization. Narwhal is a mempool module that ensures data submitted to the consensus is available. Narwhal's design utilizes a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG), where its many components are connected through a network rather than a chain (similar to a distributed ledger). It can also be used independently (without Tusk) with other consensus engines, including HotStuff or Cosmos' Ignite.
The sender (similar to a leader node) broadcasts a transaction to all Sui validators.
The sender receives the vote from the validator, Sui. The weight is proportionally distributed based on the validator's interest in Sui under the Delegated Proof of Stake setting.
The sender collects votes that satisfy the Byzantine Fault Tolerance majority condition and creates a certificate. Validators must reach consensus through the Byzantine agreement and sort the certificates in order.
After processing each certificate sequentially, the sender finally sends the certificate back to the validator for the final confirmation of the transaction.
Sui's transactions are connected in the form of a network graph instead of being sequentially stacked in a blockchain. This DAG-based data paradigm, combined with decomposing transactions into smaller parts and utilizing their inherent properties, increases scalability. Sui's asynchronous architecture provides security against denial-of-service attacks, while the high-performance BFT consensus algorithm Tusk ensures the ordering of transactions. Narwhal and Tusk together enable each validator to process more transactions within a given time frame.
Product Performance
Aptos: processes 160,000 transactions per second;
Aptos boasts a speed of processing 160,000 transactions per second (TPS). This achievement is attributed to four key technological advances: parallel transaction execution, state synchronization, delayed submission, and collaborative scheduling.
Parallel transaction execution - processes transactions in parallel and re-executes related processes.
State synchronization - chain data can be synchronized and validated by reliable non-validators.
Collaborative scheduling - allows optimizing resource allocation for transactions during the scheduling phase to speed up processing.
Delayed submission - the concept of batch submitting transactions after the block-STM process is completed.
Sui: Processing 120,000 transactions per second and "unlimited" TPS.
An eight-core MacBook Pro can process over 120,000 transactions per second on the Sui blockchain.
This largely depends on the type of transactions, as simple transactions do not require extensive consensus and allow for horizontal scalability. The performance of Sui can be "unlimited" at its maximum scale. As network demand grows, Sui nodes can continue to add staff to handle additional transactions.
Use Cases
Aptos and Sui have a wide range of use cases across industries and various applications.
Aptos blockchain's versatile architecture makes it suitable for applications in different fields. Its main goal is to decentralize the cloud infrastructure supporting Web 2.0 applications and promote widespread adoption of Web 3.0. With scalability, security, and low fees, Aptos blockchain is well-suited for finance, supply chain management, decentralized finance (DeFi), gaming, identity management, and other applications. The platform focuses on solving real-world problems, making it an attractive choice for developers and businesses seeking powerful and scalable blockchain solutions.
As a permissionless layer-one blockchain, Sui blockchain offers instant settlement, high throughput, and low latency, making it suitable for various industries and application scenarios. It emphasizes energy efficiency and decentralization, making Sui an ideal choice for finance, Internet of Things (IoT), gaming, social media, content sharing, and other latency-sensitive domains. Sui is committed to supporting latency-sensitive decentralized applications, making it a strong competitor in the blockchain ecosystem.
Market Performance
Aptos has raised a substantial amount of funding, totaling about $400 million, from renowned venture capital firms. Investors include Andreessen Horowitz, FTX Ventures, Jump Crypto, a16z, Tiger Global, and Multicoin Capital, among others. This strong financial support highlights investors' confidence in the Aptos project and its growth and success potential. The involvement of prominent companies not only provides financial backing but also opens doors for potential collaborations and partnerships, further solidifying Aptos' position in the market.
Sui also received strong support from major investors such as Lightspeed Venture Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, and Redpoint. In its latest Series B funding round, Sui raised an impressive $300 million, combined with the $36 million raised in the Series A funding, bringing the total funding to $336 million. The substantial funding and a valuation of over $2 billion highlight the market's interest and confidence in the Sui project. The participation of well-known investors has paved the way for strategic alliances and partnerships, contributing to Sui's growth and ecosystem development.
In addition, both Aptos and Sui have nurtured vibrant and active developer, enthusiast, and user communities. These communities actively contribute to the ecosystem through app development, participation in discussions, and sharing of ideas. The community-driven approach of these two platforms facilitates innovation, collaboration, and adoption, creating a strong ecosystem for Aptos and Sui.
Summary and Reflection
While it is still unclear which solution will emerge as the market's winner, Aptos and Sui have made significant progress in their development, greatly advancing the current state of blockchain design. Aptos has gained market share by entering the market relatively early and attracting a lot of attention, while Sui benefits from its innovative and security-focused approach. One thing is certain: based on its enormous potential to improve the scalability and security of cryptographic networks, the Move-based technology is destined to have a lasting impact on the industry.
