Sui VS Aptos: Which Is The BETTER Layer 1

The Layer 1 scene has always been  dynamic with new projects popping up,   striving to achieve what their  predecessors are struggling to. Among them are the recently  launched Sui and Aptos. Though the reception for these two projects  recently has been mixed, to say the least,   they have and continue to receive some  buzz due to their prominent VC backing,   new, non-EVM tech, and association with  Meta’s now-shelved crypto project Diem.

Now, sit back as we compare these two projects  side by side starting with their founding teams.  Sui and Aptos both have teams composed of  former Meta employees. After Meta shelved   its blockchain project, Avery Ching, a former  tech lead at Facebook, and Mohammad Shaikh,   former strategic partnerships lead for  Facebook’s wallet Novi, left the company   in 2021 to create Aptos Labs.

The following year,  Aptos raised a total of $350M in funding over 3   rounds led by Andreessen Horowitz, Jump  Crypto, Binance labs, and FTX Ventures. Sui on the other hand was created by Mysten  Labs, a software company also launched in 2021   by former Meta employees. The core members  all played a key role in Meta’s crypto unit   including CEO Evan Cheng, previously Director  of R&D at Novi Financial, CPO Adeniyi Abiodun,   previously the product lead at Novi, CTO Sam  Blackshear and ex-principal engineer at Novi,   chief Scientist George Danezis, the ex-chief  scientist at Novi and Kostas Chalkias, chief  

cryptographer at MystenLabs and  ex-chief cryptographer at Meta. After the team founded Mysten Labs,  they raised a total of $336M in funding   over 3 rounds led by FTX Ventures  and Andreessen Horowitz. Clearly,   both projects are backed by  prominent VCs and have solid   teams behind them, though notably, Sui’s core team  has more ex-Meta employees who held leading roles. 

Under the hood, at the center of both projects  is a programming language known as Move. Move is a Rust-based programming language that was  originally created by one of Sui’s core members,   Sam Blackshear, to power Facebook’s Diem  blockchain. Move supposedly addresses the   vulnerabilities found in popular EVM programming  language Solidity, by making it harder for   developers to write buggy code or encounter  unexpected behaviors in their smart contracts.

Aptos uses the original Move language, but  otherwise employs the same address-centric   architecture as with many other blockchains,  meaning that most of the transactions on the   blockchain involve modifying or managing data tied  to specific addresses. So for instance, a transfer   of an asset requires updating the ownership record  of addresses of both the sender and recipient.

Sui however, uses a modified version of  Move which introduces an object-centric   model that deviates from the address-centric  approach. Sui’s object-centric storage system   means that it represents different elements  on the blockchain like tokens or even smart   contracts as "objects”.

So when a transfer or  any other operation involving the object occurs,   the relevant functions only need  to update the object's internal   properties to reflect the changes in  ownership, which can be more efficient. For a deeper breakdown of how  Sui’s object-centric model works,   be sure to catch our video introducing the  project after you’re done with this one. Both projects are also trying to tackle  scalability issues through parallel execution   of transactions, though they both  execute this in different ways.

In Aptos, parallel execution is implemented  using a technique called BlockSTM which   stands for Block-based Software Transactional  Memory and generally involves the optimistic   execution of batches of transactions. Meaning  that they assume there are no issues with   concurrent transactions and execute them all  in parallel to allow for higher throughput.

Though when conflicts are detected, the affected  transactions are re-executed and re-validated,   and finally, the agreed-upon set and ordering of   transactions is reflected in  the final blockchain state. Sui on the other hand, uses a DAG or Directed  Acyclic Graph-based mempool to facilitate   parallel transactions, and does not require all  transactions to be ordered sequentially.

So for   instance for simple independent transactions  like sending an NFT which would only affect a   single owner, Sui uses parallel execution, which  can even bypass consensus for faster processing. Consensus is only needed for more complex  transactions with dependencies that affect objects   owned by multiple addresses, like swapping tokens  from shared liquidity pools in Defi protocols.

As a result of their respective architectures,  Aptos claims to be capable of handling over 160k   TPS, while Sui claims up to 300k TPS. However,  these remain to be proven with Aptos registering   a peak TPS of just over 1,200 in the last 30 days  and Sui a peak of 1,007 TPS over the same period. Let’s now look at some ecosystem metrics  starting with the Total Value Locked.

Aptos,   which was launched 7 months prior  to Sui, has about $44 million in TVL   compared to Sui’s $12 million, both being  rather low compared to leading chains. As for the number of projects on each  ecosystem, MoveMarketCap lists over 150   projects on Aptos and about 80 on Sui spanning  infrastructure, DeFi, NFTs, and more.

However,   low activity count and TVL still indicate  that there is low usage of these chains. What about their tokenomics? The  total supply of Sui’s native asset   SUI is capped at 10 billion with 50% of  these tokens allocated to the community,   20% to early contributors, 14% to investors,  10% to MystenLabs treasury, and the remaining   6% Community Access Program and App Testers.

Sui released only about 5% of its total supply   at mainnet launch and the rest will follow  a release schedule that extends till 2030,   though a massive unlock will happen later  this year in November, and May next year. Aptos, on the other hand, had an initial total  supply of 1 billion APT tokens at mainnet launch.   APT does not have a maximum cap as staking  rewards will increase the total supply of   the token as time goes by.

That said, 51% of the  initial supply was allocated to the community,   17% to the Aptos foundation, 19% to core  contributors, and the remaining 13% to investors. Both projects have faced significant backlash over  its subpar tokenomics, with Sui only having a low   amount of tokens circulating and massive unlocks  scheduled, and Aptos due to the fact that half   of the token supply is allocated to investors.

While these tokens are subject to 4-year lockup   schedules, the majority are being staked, and  staking rewards earned from them are not locked. You can learn more about the tokenomics of Sui,  Aptos, and many other projects on our website. Before we end the video, it's worth mentioning  that there are other ‘heirs’ of Diem, such as   Linera, which is still in its early stages  of development.

Similar to Aptos and Sui,   Linera is founded by an ex Meta employee and is   backed by top VCs. The project completed  a $6 million seed round in June 2022,   led by Andreessen Horowitz with the participation  of Cygni Capital, Kima Ventures and Tribe Capital. What do you think, will Aptos and Sui deliver on   their lofty ambitions and give the  incumbents a run for their money,   or will it be other Meta spinoffs that take  the throne? Let us know in the comments.