Move's Expanding Universe

Introduction

In our last article, we explored the origins of the Move programming language—born from Diem’s ambition to build a safer and more deterministic foundation for smart contracts. Today, Move is no longer tied to a single chain. Its influence has spread across a new class of next-gen blockchains like Sui, Aptos, Movement, Supra, and IOTA.

What makes this ecosystem expansion remarkable is how Move was architected from day one to be platform-agnostic and modular. It wasn’t built for one consensus mechanism or runtime—it was built to travel. Whether it's a DAG like Sui or a BFT validator network like Aptos, Move adapts with ease. Some implementations now support multi-language execution and alternative VMs—proof of Move's flexibility and forward-looking design.

Sui: The Object-Centric Powerhouse

Sui is a high-performance Layer 1 developed by Mysten Labs. Built from the ground up to leverage Move, Sui adopts a novel object-centric model—on-chain assets are treated as discrete, addressable entities rather than account-bound records. This enables parallel execution of transactions that interact with independent objects, yielding massive throughput gains.

This model is coupled with Narwhal & Bullshark, a DAG-based consensus system that separates data availability and ordering, contributing to sub-second transaction finality. Sui also scales horizontally by simply adding validators, without relying on rollups or L2s.

According to recent data:

• Multiple dApps are active or deployed

• $3B+ TVL has been locked in DeFi protocols

• 40 M+ monthly active wallets are using Sui-based applications

Sui’s success is tightly linked to Mysten Labs, which has consistently supported the ecosystem through SDKs, grants, and developer education—the result: explosive growth in both usage and tooling.

Aptos: Parallel Execution with Institutional Focus

Like Sui, Aptos emerged from the Diem project and uses Move as its core smart contract language. It offers a different execution design through Block-STM v2—a parallel execution engine that enables up to 30,000 TPS in live environments and over 1M in theoretical benchmarks.

Aptos has positioned itself as a platform for institutional DeFi and RWA tokenization. Key partnerships with Microsoft, Google Cloud, Tether, and BlackRock underscore this enterprise tilt. Its proof-of-stake consensus and upcoming Raptr BFT upgrade are expected to further improve throughput and reliability.

Recent ecosystem metrics include:

• 190+ projects as of late 2024

• $1.8B+ TVL

• 10 M+ monthly active accounts

Where Sui dominates with high-speed DeFi and retail UX, Aptos is betting on long-term, compliance-friendly growth.

Movement: From Cross-Chain Vision to Move Industries

Originally founded as Movement Labs in 2022, the project set out to integrate the Move programming language with Ethereum-compatible environments. It focused on building tooling—like SDKs, a CLI, and shared sequencer infrastructure—to enable seamless cross-chain Move adoption.

In 2025, Movement Labs rebranded as Move Industries, signaling a new chapter centered around transparency, developer experience, and alignment with core crypto values. The transition also introduced new leadership and a clearer commitment to community-first infrastructure.

Move Industries continues to build a unified execution environment for both Move and EVM smart contracts. Technically, Movement includes:

• Move Executor supporting dual runtimes

• Fast Finality Settlement

• Multi-asset staking

Supra: AutoFi-First Oracle and Infra Layer

Supra isn't a dApp chain but a vertically integrated Layer 1 offering real-time oracles, bridgeless messaging, automation, and randomness—all native to its chain. It's optimized for AutoFi (automated DeFi), with native MEV capture and 500,000 TPS capability.

Its infrastructure allows AI agents to operate with on-chain data, and developers can deploy EVM, MoveVM, SolanaVM, or CosmWasm codebases without modification.

Supra’s footprint is best understood through integrations:

• 237+ integrations across 47 networks (2023)

• 79+ projects building, at the time of writing

Its value proposition is systemic: enable faster, cheaper, more automated DeFi everywhere. Supra complements, rather than competes with, application-layer chains like Sui and Aptos.

IOTA Rebased: A Scalable Object Ledger for the Real World

IOTA Rebased is the latest evolution of the IOTA network, launched on May 5, 2025. It brings Delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS) and MoveVM smart contracts to Layer 1, while preserving IOTA’s original strengths of efficiency and real-world usability.

Rebased introduces:

• 50,000+ TPS and subsecond finality

• A validator set launched with 13 Genesis Validators, scaling toward 150+

• 2B+ tokens staked, representing 43.4% of supply

• 10–15% APY staking rewards

IOTA’s smart contract stack includes MoveVM on Layer 1 and EVM compatibility on Layer 2, already hosting 30+ dApps.

With strong staking participation, enterprise traction, and a modular contract framework, IOTA Rebased positions itself as a competitive Move-powered Layer 1 for global-scale public infrastructure and digital trust systems.

Walrus: Programmable Storage on Sui

Built on the Sui blockchain, Walrus is a decentralized storage protocol that turns data into an interactive, programmable asset. Originally developed by Mysten Labs and later spun out into the Walrus Foundation, it allows developers to publish, retrieve, and manage large files—known as "blobs"—using Move-based smart contracts.

Unlike traditional storage networks, Walrus makes data programmable through smart contracts. It supports dynamic interactions, automated access, and modification—ideal for AI datasets, rich media, websites, blockchain history, and more.

Recent stats show:

• 140+ projects actively building

• 26+ websites hosted

• 4000+ TB storage available in total

Walrus uses erasure coding to split blobs into slivers, achieving high availability with minimal redundancy (4x–5x replication). Even if two-thirds of nodes fail, data can be reconstructed, outperforming many centralized systems.

Key innovations include:

• Sponsored transactions via Sui-native gas abstraction

• Low-cost blob uploads with minimal validator load

• Support for rollups, data availability layers, and enterprise recovery tools

With horizontal scalability and Move-native programmability, Walrus is set to become a core infrastructure layer for both consumer and enterprise-grade Web3 applications.

Conclusion: Move’s Expanding Foundation

From scalable Layer 1s to programmable storage and decentralized infrastructure, the Move ecosystem now spans six distinct but complementary platforms.

• Sui delivers parallelized execution and a fast-growing developer economy.

• Aptos targets enterprise finance with performance and compliance.

• Movement offers cross-VM support and unified tooling for multi-chain apps.

• Supra powers automation and real-time data for the broader Web3 stack.

• IOTA brings MoveVM to public infrastructure, staking, and tokenized trade.

• Walrus transforms storage into a programmable, verifiable smart contract layer.

Move is no longer just a language—it’s a foundation for data, finance, compute, and storage across the decentralized internet.

About Luganodes

Luganodes is a world-class, Swiss-operated, non-custodial blockchain infrastructure provider that has rapidly gained recognition in the industry for offering institutional-grade services. It was born out of the Lugano Plan B Program, an initiative driven by Tether and the City of Lugano. Luganodes maintains an exceptional 99.9% uptime with round-the-clock monitoring by SRE experts. With support for 45+ PoS networks, it ranks among the top validators on Polygon, Polkadot, Sui, and Tron. Luganodes prioritizes security and compliance, holding the distinction of being one of the first staking providers to adhere to all SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, and ISO 27001 standards as well as offering Chainproof insurance to institutional clients.

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