Mysten Labs Co-founder Kostas Chalkias: How Cryptography Innovation Became the Core of Sui Design

Cryptographers play an important role in building blockchains, mainly involving three aspects: research, implementation, and product innovation. Research requires innovation in the field of Cryptography, seeking new algorithms and studying how to crack them. Implementation involves applying Cryptography concepts to actual products, sometimes requiring code optimization. Product innovation is about proposing entirely new ideas based on existing Cryptography primitives.

In the design of Sui, advancements in external research such as zero-knowledge proofs have influenced us. We excel at combining these new theories with existing technologies to drive the creation of innovative products. For example, the zero-knowledge login (ZK Login) was born this way. Internal innovation is often triggered by the product team, and we brainstorm solutions to various challenging problems.

The Move language helps us create innovations in Cryptography and provides developers with a more secure experience. It addresses some security vulnerabilities in Solidity, such as reentrancy attacks. The object-oriented features of Move enhance code reusability, making it easier for users to understand transaction content. Its parallelization features also aid in designing more interesting algorithms.

The data structure of Sui enhances the utility of NFTs. It allows for the creation of dynamic NFTs, which can update fields with each transaction. Due to low storage costs, NFTs can be stored on-chain, making it easier for different smart contracts to read and write, achieving composability. This solves the centralization and latency issues brought by off-chain storage.

What excites me most about the future of Sui is its diversified authentication methods. We support multiple signing algorithms and are compatible with more wallets. We have also introduced zero-knowledge proofs and privacy protection technologies, which can be used to build privacy KYC systems and private transfers. Our developer solutions team also provides support for teams that are not well-versed in Cryptography, helping them realize their ideas.