Mysten Labs Founder Explains Sui Blockchain

by Arthur · October 21, 2022

The crypto world is awash with blockchains – many of which serve no discernible purpose – and so when a new one comes along, I’m skeptical. But when I spoke with Adeniyi Abiodun, one of a team of Facebook vets who recently raised $300 million for a new chain, I was intrigued.

Abiodun is one of five veterans of Facebook’s ill-starred crypto project who left to found Mysten Labs, a company building something called the Sui blockchain that wants to deliver Ethereum-style, but with better design and tools for scaling. According to Abiodun, it is “ridiculous” that existing blockchains (including Ethereum) become much more expensive as more people use them – an inversion of the economies of scale model that drives Silicon Valley.

He describes these blockchain problems as the “throughput problem” and says the Sui blockchain has solved them with the same “object-based” programming prevalent in other computing systems, including his former employers Oracle and Facebook, which are adept at handling millions or billions or users . I lack the computer science knowledge to give a proper assessment, but the idea seems to be that this style of programming can eliminate transaction choke points – and sky-high blockchain fees – by allowing activities to happen in parallel across many realms. The result, according to Abiodun, is that the upcoming Sui blockchain can meet an increase in demand simply by adding more hardware while keeping costs the same. He says it’s the blockchain equivalent of going from dial-up internet to fibre.

Meanwhile, Abiodun says Sui is focusing on three killer apps: finance, digital commerce and gaming. As for gaming, he says Mysten Labs is exploring partnerships with South Korean gaming giants to build blockchain-based experiences where fun is the first priority while token economy comes later. He says this will amount to a reversal of the prominent crypto game Axie Infinity, which he mocks as “a spreadsheet that looks like a game.”

I have no idea if any of this will happen, especially as previously high-profile projects like Dfinity and Polkadot raised big buckets of money to deliver a faster, better blockchain experience and so far have had little to show for it. But as Abiodun notes, blockchain technology has changed little over the past five years, and the market may be ready for something like Sui whose primary focus is excellent user design and whose costs drop the more people use it. We’ll see. In the meantime, find our quick overview of the latest crypto news below.

Jeff John Roberts
[email protected]
@jeffjohnroberts

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