Prior to the launch of Sui this May, Binance had announced the tokens will be available via the Launchpool, allowing users to contribute digital assets to a liquidity pool in order to earn rewards.
This development has drawn incredible attention to SUI, prompting the founder of Tron, Justin Sun, to reportedly deposit %56 million worth of TrueUSD, a stablecoin, into Binance. This further led to a “fiasco” between Binance’s CZ Zhao who promised to take action against Sun should he attempt to grab the SUI tokens.
But what exactly is the SUI token and how does it work?
The SUI token is the native token of the Sui network designed to facilitate the network’s proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, on-chain voting for upgrades to the blockchain, and gas fees. It will also allow users to participate in the system’s DeFi activities.
The May 3 launch of the mainnet is accompanied by a SUI token sale, with each participating crypto exchange offering 225 million tokens. Each user is eligible for up to 10,000 SUI tokens at a price of $0.10 each. For the time being, U.S. residents are not eligible to participate in the sale.
SUI tokens will be distributed both to a community reserve for research and development, grants, and subsidies, and to early contributors to the project, app testers, and other stakeholders. There is a hard cap of 10 billion SUI tokens in total. 14% of tokens released at launch are available for investors.
The Sui blockchain is Layer 1, meaning it provides the underlying infrastructure for a system of validations and transactions in much the same way as the foundational Bitcoin or Ethereum networks. Layer 1 blockchains are the fundamental architecture that supports a token—or, in some cases, a broader network of different tokens.
The network sets itself apart from other Layer 1 chains with its focus on instant transaction finality, reduced latency in smart contract deployment, and overall transaction speed. One of the ways it aims to achieve these goals is through Move, a native programming language based on the Rust crypto programming language.
Sui’s validators are akin to miners in other blockchain ecosystems. However, its validation system aims to set itself apart from rivals by providing parallel processing of transactions, which Sui developers believe will increase throughput, reduce latency, and enhance scalability. The potential use cases of a parallel-process validation system include gaming, retail payments, and physical points of sale using Sui.
Prior to its mainnet launch, Sui’s developers announced a successful $300 million Series B funding round in support of development.
