$SUI Q&A SPACE WITH MYSTEN LABS CEO EVAN CHENG💧

The Spaces featured Evan Chang (CEO, Mission Labs) discussing Sui’s security posture, long-term vision, decentralization trade-offs, programmable privacy, developer ecosystem growth, and near-term adoption goals. On security, he detailed the Move Registry, an in-house security team scanning the broader ecosystem, heavier use of AI-based automation, tighter monitoring, stronger audit support, and a push for protocols to open‑source code. He framed crypto’s future as a non-linear march toward automation and data-as-product, with stablecoin adoption by fintechs and institutions as a key unlock. On decentralization, he emphasized a spectrum of design dials—stablecoins and custody will span centralized to decentralized models—and Sui’s approach is to start with sufficient decentralization and tune over time. Privacy should be programmable: Sui plus Walrus enable encrypted-by-default data with on-chain policy enforcement instead of private chains. Near term, Sui prioritizes financial use cases (payments, tokenization, coordination) and end-to-end, solution-like building blocks for enterprises, while expanding developer tooling and support channels. He acknowledged community concerns after recent hacks and stressed swift responses, proactive prevention, and long-term conviction, urging builders to focus on sound design and testing to scale safely.

Sui Twitter Space: Comprehensive Notes and Analysis

Participants and Roles

• Evan Chang — CEO of Mission Labs; primary guest answering most questions.
• JP — co-host and moderator; opened with the first question on security and auditing.
• Deth (co-host) — posed open-ended questions on the future of crypto, privacy, and the dream app.
• Community questioners:
  • Ora (also referred to as Warren) — asked about satisfaction, focus, and next steps.
  • Katara — asked about developer support and connecting builders to Move devs.
  • Joshua — asked for guidance to new developers (especially in Africa) learning Move/Sui stack.
  • Nafari — asked about fixing sentiment after recent hacks.
  • Clean Water — asked about prioritization among Walrus, DeepBook, Sui Play, and past initiatives.
  • Magnissa — asked about banks/payment processors adopting public networks vs private rails.
  • Van — asked about product submission/evaluation channels for builders.
  • Eman Shui — asked about transparency, decentralization, and employee-owned companies.
  • Philos — asked about community support and scaling assistance beyond funding.

Key Themes and Highlights

• Security posture: Move Registry, active security team scanning broader ecosystem (not just core code), stronger proactivity post-hacks, more AI automation, and pushing for open-sourced protocol code.
• Evan’s macro vision: slow, non-linear progress; mainstream awakening to stablecoins; need to re-architect data and trust for automated systems; programmable privacy and data policies; the Sui stack designed to make data private-by-default while auditable.
• Decentralization vs centralization: pragmatic view of trade-offs; stablecoin issuance often centralized for compliance but multiple governance models emerging; infrastructure dials tuned over time.
• Near-term focus: grow network and adoption via end-to-end, tangible financial use cases and building blocks; reduce narrative confusion by showing working products; use near-term success as launchpad for data and privacy innovations.
• Developers: expand tooling and support; help builders with Move’s safety model; design-first mindset; comprehensive testing (unit, integration, fuzzing) and AI-assisted audits.
• Community support: scale beyond 1:1, favor creative products and new approaches versus clones; foundation/ecosystem teams open to engage and evaluate.
• Institutional adoption: initial private/consortium instincts expected; Sui will win by providing ready solutions demonstrating programmable privacy on public networks.
• Sentiment: acknowledge the downturn post-hacks; assert long-term resilience, execution, and stubborn commitment to deliver; historical analogies of turnaround.

Security and Auditing on Sui

• Evan’s response to JP:
  • Active measures: Move Registry, dedicated security team scanning the ecosystem (beyond core), monitoring sensitive protocols.
  • Proactive vulnerability hunting: intensified after recent incidents, focusing on high-security smart contracts.
  • AI automation: leveraging language/tooling expertise to automate detection and auditing steps.
  • Audits and open source: some exploited issues were obvious; in certain cases audits didn’t catch or teams didn’t address findings. Pushing protocols to open-source code to improve scrutiny.
  • Overall stance: more active and hands-on than before; acknowledge that some issues can slip through but posture has changed decisively.

Future of Crypto: Evan’s Vision

• Non-linear, slow progress with frustrating cycles; the unlock moment comes suddenly.
• Mainstream awakening to stablecoins:
  • Adoption trends: enterprise, banks/Wall Street (TradFi), and fintech integrating stablecoins as payment solutions.
• Structural forces:
  • Society-wide gamification/speculation isn’t unique to crypto; broader cultural questions on impact.
  • Historical parallels: dot-com era skepticism to ubiquity; PayPal’s early payments pain; internet intranet phases; AI’s long grind before breakout.
• Why change is necessary:
  • Current trust/intermediary models don’t scale in an automated world.
  • Data modeling paradigm shift: data as a product (personal and financial), requiring encryption, access policy, identity, and portability.
• Near-term sparks:
  • Agentic payments and products like DeepBook becoming polished and real.
• Builder mindset:
  • Take long-term view, be willing to bet on the future, lead with end-to-end products that open developers’ and consumers’ eyes.
  • Once the unlock happens, everyone rushes in.
• Deth’s addition:
  • Sui’s performance leadership: Mysticeti consensus cutting latency to sub-seconds, Walrus and other capabilities enabling new applications.
  • Observing other chains copying Sui’s playbook; Sui is pushing beyond the last decade’s paradigms.

Decentralization vs Centralization (Stablecoins)

• Evan’s view:
  • Decentralization provides trust/redundancy/resilience but has trade-offs.
  • System design requires selecting which aspects are decentralized; one size does not fit all.
• Stablecoins specifically:
  • Compliance reality: issuance typically centralized to meet regulatory reporting/auditing.
  • Emerging models: “Temple” referenced as an approach reminiscent of Libra’s decentralized governance/issuance; also acknowledges algorithmic models with significant trade-offs.
  • Expect market convergence on a few models that work; evolution in steps, not a single leap.
• Sui’s approach:
  • Underlying infrastructure should be sufficiently decentralized.
  • Continuously tune the “dials” (trust, cost, latency, scale) as tech improves and conditions change.

Privacy: Programmable by Design

• Evan’s evolution (from Libra days): privacy is essential but shouldn’t be absolute or hard-coded at base layer; must be programmable.
• Spectrum of privacy:
  • Absolute privacy, partial privacy, party-confidentiality, auditable attestations — different regimes depending on context.
  • Business confidentiality vs public audibility to ease compliance/reporting.
• Personal data:
  • Default encryption and individual-controlled access policies.
  • Use cases range from documents to medical history; policy portability crucial.
• Sui stack alignment:
  • Sui coordinates multi-party asset/data exchanges and executes policies via Move smart contracts.
  • Walrus provides redundant, safe storage with default encryption; policy enforcement verifiable automatically through smart contracts.
• Position on private/product-specific chains:
  • Against private/publicly isolated chains as the general solution.
  • Prefer programmable privacy on a public chain: e.g., designated financial institutions can see certain transactional data; public components remain auditable; each entity has private state — all controlled by policy.
  • Predicts enterprises will migrate from “intranet-like private chains” to systems offering both public verifiability and programmable privacy.

Dream Applications and Systems to Rebuild

• Healthcare/patient data:
  • Critique of current EHR ecosystems (Epic), fragmentation, non-uniform data properties, complexity in clinical trials — system is fundamentally broken and ripe for redesign.
• Digital asset ownership and portability:
  • Centralized silos prevent true portability; gamers feel daily pain; needs robust solutions for digital collections/assets to behave like physical assets.
• Identity/telecom protocols:
  • Redesign phone/communications identity to combat spam/scams and impersonation — potentially a massive opportunity.
• General outlook:
  • Hundreds of products can be rebuilt correctly with programmable data/policies, privacy, and audibility.

Satisfaction, Strategy, and Current Focus

• Evan’s stance on satisfaction:
  • Never satisfied; relentlessly pushes for faster progress, better execution, and outcomes.
• Narrative confusion and course correction:
  • 2023: wrong go-to-market given unclear market; rough start.
  • 2024: strong growth and a simple external narrative; Sui perceived as “next big one” (e.g., challenging Solana).
  • 2025: momentum slipped as market attention pivoted (e.g., to Hyperliquid) and Sui attempted to do both future and present simultaneously; caused confusion.
• Refocus:
  • Priority: grow the network and adoption.
  • Near-term: end-to-end tangible financial use cases (payments, tokenization, coordination) where Sui is slightly ahead; deliver concrete examples from Sui, partners, and community.
  • Use near-term wins as launchpad for longer-term data privacy/portability innovations.
  • Provide “ready solutions” (not just low-level APIs) so larger companies can adopt quickly without managing blockchain complexity.

Developer Ecosystem and Guidance

• Katara’s question on Move devs and support:
  • Plans to grow developer base via improved tooling, easier onboarding, and compelling growth that attracts talent.
  • Builders should follow up with the team; changes are underway to improve developer experience and connectivity.
• Joshua’s question on new devs learning Move/Sui:
  • Start right: you’re learning the future stack.
  • Unlearn baggage: especially from Solidity; Move eliminates many safety burdens (e.g., re-entrancy, some classes of exploits).
  • Design-first differentiation: successful products win on system design and user experience, not “outcoding” competitors.
  • Testing rigor: unit, integration/system tests, web tests, fuzzing — especially for anything handling funds.
  • Use tools: AI-based first-pass audits and test utilities; but don’t overly rely on AI — understand libraries and logic to avoid mistakes.

Sentiment After Hacks and Resilience

• Nafari’s question on sentiment:
  • Acknowledge shock and downturn when community members lose money.
  • Immediate responses and proactive measures have been taken.
  • Macro sentiment across the space is challenging; asking for trust is hard.
  • Long-term confidence: vision, track record, stubborn execution, and listening to feedback.
  • Historical analogies: Nvidia’s multiple near-deaths before becoming # 1; Stripe’s early years with few customers.
  • Evan’s personal ethos: stubbornness to prove detractors wrong; committed to long-run delivery.

Product Prioritization and Initiatives

• Clean Water’s question on priorities (Walrus, DeepBook, Sui Play, past Inoki):
  • Top priority: grow the network, always.
  • Practical shift: more end-to-end, touchable products or enabling building blocks; less future-talk, more concrete launches.

Institutions: Public vs Private Rails

• Magnissa’s question:
  • Expect initial drift to private/consortium chains.
  • Sui’s path: demonstrate ready solutions on public networks with programmable privacy, showing institutions they need not give up control or leak sensitive info.
  • Move from pure infrastructure/API stance to solution-provider posture to ease the enterprise journey.

Builder Submission/Evaluation Channels

• Van’s question:
  • Use the Sui Foundation’s community/ecosystem teams for product evaluation, feedback, and assistance.
  • Don’t route everything to Evan directly; co-host Deth is a suitable contact point to connect with the right teams.

Transparency, Decentralization, and Enterprise Behavior

• Eman Shui’s question:
  • Large companies prioritize growth, shareholders, careers, and operational pragmatism over decentralization unless compelled.
  • Drivers for change: regulation (e.g., transparency mandates), cultural/societal movements (e.g., climate, diversity), and especially market pressure.
  • Startups and smaller firms adopting decentralization can force incumbents to follow via competitive pressure.

Community Support and Scaling Assistance

• Philos’s question:
  • Foundation role: debate exists on supporting small/grassroots/dgen products; scalability is a constraint.
  • Approach: create scalable engagement formats rather than 1:1; improve channels to hear and help more builders.
  • Strategy: Sui is smaller than some ecosystems; can’t win by copying. Encourage creative products/new angles versus repeating proven or unsuccessful templates.
  • Values: care about all good actors (non-scamming, non-extractive), but active support will emphasize unique, high-potential designs.

Operational Notes and Closing

• Ground rules from hosts: no price questions, no begging.
• Light aside: leather jacket joke; Evan prefers jeans/t-shirt and practical jackets.
• Evan’s closing:
  • Energized by community; promises to do more Spaces.
  • Emphasizes stubborn resolve and consistent execution even over multi-year horizons.
  • Co-hosts added a personal anecdote underscoring Evan’s resilience and determination to prove experts wrong.