When Chirp is a DePIN used for telecoms – and was deciding on a choice for a blockchain, the obvious feature would be Solana. However, the company decided to choose Sui instead. CEO Tim Kravchunovsky explains the reasons.
In reading the news about crypto, it appears that Solana has set itself up as the primary home of DePIN. The list of projects ranges from Hivemapper to Helium and Helium; many of the most popular DePIN projects are based on this blockchain. When we first looked at Solana as a potential blockchain for our project, we noticed that something wasn’t quite right. So, after putting the analytical glasses on and performing the required due diligence tests, we decided to choose Sui instead of Solana.
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The first thing that made us stop was the frequency of interruptions to Solana. In 2022, which was an annual terrible for the cryptocurrency industry, the world over Solana was down on a regular basis. However, after the Firedancer validator client launched (which was supposed to stop any future downtimes), the network was down for an entire day for a total of an entire day in February. It could have been an isolated incident; however, those odds did not inspire confidence.
To top it all off, Solana seemed to be trying to manage its own boost to its popularity. Many times throughout the year, the network has become overwhelmed due to the memecoin fever and Ore mining that resembles Bitcoin, which rapidly grew in popularity. Over the past couple of days, X has been exploding with complaints from users about the failure of transactions and memecoin traders such as BONK and WIF have flooded the network. This kind of frenzied behaviour is a good indicator of a blockchain’s capacity to deal with real-time trading volumes, and I’m not able to guarantee that a different cryptocurrency won’t be a struggle; however, for us, this was a warning sign.
In the case of DePIN and, specifically, projects like ours that handle massive quantities of data in real time, the two primary factors we expect from blockchains are reliability and scaling. When Solana first appeared with the title of “Ethereum-killer,” this was the most intriguing aspect of it: its claim to efficiently process more than 500.000 transactions every second. However, it’s much less than it would be under actual circumstances. In the context of what is happening at Chirp, it’s not suitable.
For this reason, we first began our quest to find “the Holy Grail” of DePIN blockchains; our team decided to go beyond Solana’s obvious option. We knew that this would require stepping into waters that were not well-known. For all that, among the more established and larger Layer1s, Solana really would be a top choice for speed and low cost of transactions (which was one of our top priorities). Our search resulted in Sui, which is a blockchain that became public on May 3, 2023.
We believe that Sui is a significant improvement on the Blockchain‘s design from the previous bull market, and in our opinion, getting more to every alternative Layer1 in resolving the famous Blockchain Trilemma. It’s efficient, cost-effective, decentralized, and secure. It has 100 validators located across the globe, and its throughput ranges from 10,871tps all the way to 297,000tps. As an engineer, I’m aware that I shouldn’t expect accurate performance at all times, and, in actuality, I’m much more likely to predict the worst results in actual situations. However, even 10,000tps is an impressive feat.
Additionally, Sui’s Mysticeti upgrade, which has recently launched on the test net, is expected to boost the speed of the network more efficiently, bringing the average latency down by 80% to 390 milliseconds (ms). For those who don’t have the technical background to provide this context, suffice it to say that it’s really quick. In fact, I think that this will make Sui the most efficient cryptocurrency within the DeFi space. I’ll acknowledge credit for the credit it deserves; however, Solana already has an average latency for consensus of 400ms. So, the difference is minimal.
What Sui has over Solana however – aside from the speed of processing transactions and lower prices – is its lower operating costs as well as its extremely secure software language Move. In terms of cost, the average cost of gas for Sui in the last 30 days has been less than 0.003932633 SUI (with SUI price currently hovering around $0.86); however, the costs on Solana have been up to $0.03 at different times in the past few months. This is still less than the costs of Ethereum. Obviously, it is true that these costs can increase.
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But, of course, we aren’t exactly comparing apples to apples here. Although the number of wallets in use in Sui and Solana is actually similar (despite Solana being a more well-established Blockchain), Sui hasn’t experienced something similar to Solana’s memecoin mania. However, we’re able to make a decision based on the information we’ve been given, and so far, Sui’s less expensive gas costs have helped us keep an eye on our expenses.
Last but not least, Sui was a good choice due to the broad array of tools available to help us build our Internet of Things (IoT) network. For instance, Sui Name Service (SNS) Sui Name Service (SNS) is a naming system that assigns unique identifiers blockchain addresses, allowing for naming and, thus ea, tracking of the chain IoT devices – it will go far in making an efficient and transparent system of connected devices. This lets us complete our dream of creating an IoT network that is device-independent and connects as many devices as we can.
In essence, these are the main reasons why we have chosen Sui over Solana. This isn’t to say that Solana does not have many of the characteristics needed for a robust and durable DePIN network. It’s one of the most efficient blockchains and has implemented upgrades such as Firedancer, which have been designed to increase its reliability. It’s also an established Layer1 that has survived an economic downturn (and, in actual fact, has emerged from the ashes following the demise of FTX). This makes it a great option for future DePIN projects.
In an environment that is as fast as blockchain, it is inevitable that innovations will boost existing products and go beyond them. We believe that Sui is precisely this – a kind of Solana 2.0, If you can call it that. If an early-stage DePIN project seeks my benefit in search of guidance, I’ll not hesitate to suggest Sui as the best option for a robust and flexible network.
