Evan Cheng didn’t just create another blockchain; he initiated a significant transformation.

In the past year, Sui has impressed investors, achieving over $1.5 billion in total locked value (TVL), skyrocketing from just over $200 million at the year’s outset. This surge is attributed to enhancements in Sui’s infrastructure and its Move programming language, alongside the introduction of Circle's USDC on the network.

VanEck's Sui exchanged-traded note, launched in November, has exceeded $140 million in assets, showcasing growing institutional interest in the blockchain.

Cheng, who is also the founder of Sui and CEO of Mysten Labs, applied insights from the unsuccessful Diem project led by Meta (formerly Facebook) to develop a layer-1 blockchain that is not only faster and more affordable but also distinct from its counterparts. Drawing from previous lessons, Cheng's team introduced Move, which enhances the efficiency of coding.

“The most successful projects on Sui are not mere replicas of existing DeFi protocols,” Cheng remarked in a recent interview. “They are unique offerings that cannot exist on other platforms.”

Attracting Institutional Investors

Sui’s object-oriented design treats each asset or data unit as an independent object, allowing direct interactions without impacting the entire blockchain. This setup provides large institutional investors with a way to safeguard sensitive information without exposing their entire data on-chain.

“This binary model of everything being either completely open or entirely closed is ineffective,” Cheng explained, outlining why many organizations prefer permissioned chains.

As Sui continued to expand in 2024, its competitors observed its developments closely, pondering whether imitation would follow its exemplary growth.