Why does Sui Blockchain become the preferred choice for DePIN?
Discover why Chirp, a DePIN for telecoms, opted for Sui over Solana. CEO Tim Kravchunovsky shares the insights behind this strategic decision.
In the dynamic world of crypto, where the landscape shifts rapidly, Solana initially seemed like the obvious choice for our project, Chirp—a DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Network) for telecoms. From well-known projects like Hivemapper and Helium to a host of smaller DePIN initiatives, Solana has carved out a reputation as a leading blockchain. However, as we delved deeper, we found compelling reasons to choose Sui over Solana.
Frequent Outages on Solana
One of the primary concerns was Solana’s frequent network outages. In 2022, a challenging year for the entire crypto industry, Solana faced multiple disruptions. Despite efforts to stabilize the network with the Firedancer testnet validator client, another significant outage occurred in February 2024, lasting nearly five hours. While some might argue these outages are anomalies, they significantly undermined our confidence in Solana's reliability.
Handling Popularity Surges
Solana’s popularity, while a testament to its potential, also highlighted its struggles with scalability. The network often became congested due to memecoin trading and Bitcoin-like Ore mining. During these frenzies, transactions frequently failed, with users flooding social media platforms to express their frustration. Such episodes exposed the network’s limitations in handling real trading volumes, raising doubts about its capacity to support a project like Chirp, which demands high reliability and scalability.
Reliability and Scalability Requirements
For a DePIN project like Chirp, which manages vast amounts of real-time data, reliability and scalability are non-negotiable. Solana’s initial promise of processing over 50,000 transactions per second (tps) was impressive, but real-life conditions often fell short. Our project needed a blockchain that could consistently meet high-performance standards, prompting us to look beyond Solana's obvious choice.
Discovering Sui: A Superior Alternative
Our search led us to Sui, a blockchain that launched publicly on May 3, 2023. Sui offers a balanced solution to the blockchain trilemma—cost-efficiency, decentralization, and security—better than many others from the previous bull market. With 100 validators distributed globally, Sui's throughput ranges from an impressive 10,871 tps to 297,000 tps. While engineers like myself are cautious about performance claims, even the lower end of this range is exceptional and meets our project’s demands.
Innovative Features and Upgrades
Sui’s innovative Mysticeti upgrade, currently live on mainnet, is set to enhance the network’s speed further by reducing consensus latency by 80% to 390 milliseconds (ms). For context, this makes Sui potentially the fastest blockchain in the DeFi space, surpassing Solana’s already impressive 400ms latency. This rapid consensus process is crucial for applications that require immediate data processing and transaction finality.
So what exactly does Mysticeti mean for performance?
- Fewest rounds to complete commits:
Mysticeti validators sign and share blocks without certification, making each round a half-round trip, the least round-trips of any DAG-based consensus algorithm. - Increased throughput without increased latency:
Forgoing the primary-worker distinction, Mysticeti simply inlines transactions within the primary block and still delivers a very high throughput – well over 100K TPS without significant increases in latency. - Earlier committed transactions:
Mysticeti’s novel commit rule naturally appoints multiple leaders every round, allowing more transactions to be committed earlier.
Lower Transaction Costs and Secure Programming
In addition to speed, Sui offers lower transaction costs and utilizes the secure Move programming language. Over the past 30 days, the average gas fee on Sui has been just 0.003932633 SUI, significantly lower than Solana’s peak of $0.03. While Solana’s fees remain lower than Ethereum’s, these differences add up, particularly for a project like Chirp that processes numerous transactions daily. The Move programming language also provides enhanced security features, reducing the risk of vulnerabilities and exploits.
Comprehensive Toolset for IoT Integration
Sui’s robust toolset supports our growing Internet of Things (IoT) network, a crucial aspect of Chirp’s infrastructure. Features like the Sui Name Service (SNS) enhance transparency and efficiency by assigning unique identifiers to blockchain addresses, facilitating easy tracking of on-chain IoT devices. This capability is essential for creating a more interconnected and efficient system of devices, aligning perfectly with our vision of building a network that connects as many devices to the blockchain as possible.
Conclusion: Sui is the Ideal Choice
To sum up, these factors made Sui the ideal choice for Chirp. While Solana remains a strong contender for DePIN projects, with its speed, ongoing upgrades like Firedancer, and resilience through market downturns, Sui’s innovative approach and superior performance metrics stood out. In the fast-evolving blockchain ecosystem, new developments often surpass existing solutions. We see Sui as a next-generation blockchain, offering a robust and scalable network ideal for our needs.
If an early-stage DePIN project seeks my advice, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Sui. Its reliability, scalability, lower costs, and comprehensive toolset provide a strong foundation for building resilient and efficient networks. As the blockchain space continues to innovate, we are confident that our choice of Sui positions us well for the future, ensuring we can deliver on our promise of a reliable and scalable telecoms network.