Startups have no shortage of options when it comes to choosing a blockchain to build on. Many are fast, and the costs are getting lower.
As crypto investors, we also have plenty of options to choose from. With so many layer 1 and layer 2 ledgers available these days, you really have to stand out.
Raoul Pal was the first person I heard say that all blockchains are just decentralized businesses in the business of selling block space. For me, deciding which coin to buy comes down to one question:
What makes your block space different from everyone else's?
To understand the unique features of Sui, it is important to first understand Sui’s object-centric data model.
Sui was built from the ground up with an object centric data model. Most blockchains use and account centric data model: where an assets assets are stored within a user account or a smart contract account.
With an account-centric data model, data is stored in accounts, and digital assets like NFTs or tokens are kept in either a user account or a smart contract account. NFTs aren’t directly controlled by their owners; instead, they’re managed by smart contracts. These contracts don’t hold much information about the NFTs themselves and usually link to off-chain storage for details. This setup makes it hard for NFTs to be used in meaningful ways because their utility is limited by where and how they’re stored.
This can be challenging for gaming companies looking to build Web 3 games that have a Web 2 user experience. NFTs that represent in-game items are usually stuck inside the smart contract that created them, so users don’t really own the item. The smart contract just keeps track of who owns what, which makes it hard to use and interact with different NFTs at the same time.
For some use cases, such as gaming, NFTs should be able to change in real time, and under this data model, this is hard to achieve.
On Sui, instead of using accounts, everything is stored as objects. These objects represent things like user assets, each with its own unique features, including ownership. These features can change—even in real time—depending on the rules set by the smart contract that created them. For example, making dynamic NFTs is simple—you just add some logic that changes an object’s traits or appearance when it takes ownership of another specific object.
The objects and their details are stored directly on the blockchain in the user’s account, giving the owner full control over them. Objects can be anything, like token balances or in-game items. Even though there are still accounts and smart contracts, these objects aren’t stuck inside the smart contracts. Instead, they exist on their own and are recognized directly by the blockchain, meaning they are truly owned by the users.
Now, picture an in-game asset, like an NFT, evolving in real-time as a gamer triggers events during play. This could be anything—a change in score, a shift in ranking, or even defeating a specific character.
Similarly, consider NFTs in finance that evolve in real-time, responding to events fed into Sui by oracles. Combine this with the ability for shared or single ownership, and you’ve got something truly different.
On Sui, a transaction is more than just moving assets from one place to another. Think of it like building a custom order at a restaurant. Instead of just asking for one thing, you can give a bunch of instructions at once—like ordering a burger with extra cheese, no pickles, and a side of fries—all in one go. These instructions are grouped together in what's called a Programmable Transaction Block, or PTB.
A PTB is like giving the chef a complete set of steps to make your meal exactly how you want it. Each step, or command, happens in order, and you can use what happens in one step to decide what to do next. For example, if you decide halfway through that you want extra sauce, the chef can add that without starting over. But if one step fails—like the fries burning—then the whole order fails, and nothing is made.
The cool thing about PTBs is that they can handle up to 1,024 different instructions in a single go, which is way more efficient than doing each step one at a time. This also helps keep the costs down, just like ordering a combo meal is cheaper than ordering each item separately.
While PTBs are super flexible and allow for lots of different instructions, they can't do everything. If you need something really complicated, you’d have to create a new recipe, or in Sui's case, publish a new Move package.
Overall, PTBs are a powerful tool for developers on Sui, allowing them to give users a way to manage their digital assets in a smooth, efficient, and cost-effective manner.
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