Sui Network, a Layer 1 blockchain, has been gaining traction in the community as it approaches its mainnet launch scheduled for May 3. Sui Network’s native token, SUI, will be issued on multiple crypto exchanges, including OKX, Kucoin, and Bybit, once it goes live on mainnet.

But the anticipated launch of the SUI token is not the only reason why it has been trending of late. The token was recently involved in an altercation between Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao and Tron founder Justin Sun, which appeared to be settled in a series of tweets. But what exactly is the SUI token, and why has it recently been under the crypto spotlight?

What is SUI token?

The SUI token is the native token of the Sui Layer 1 blockchain network, which focuses on high-speed transactions, instant transaction finality, and reducing latency in the deployment of smart contracts. The network has garnered recognition for its approach to the Decentralised Finance (DeFi) industry, which includes supporting developers by easing the smart contract development process with Move, a programming language based on Rust.

The SUI token is expected to play an important role in the blockchain ecosystem, including participating in PoS consensus, staking, and on-chain voting for protocol upgrades. While the token’s primary utility will be to pay for gas fees, it will also have more advanced use cases, such as enabling governance, paying for transaction processing, and participating in DeFi activities.

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Each crypto exchange conducting SUI token sale will offer 225 million tokens with a maximum allocation of 10,000 per user. Tokens will be sold for $0.1 each. It is worth noting that US residents will be excluded from participating in the sale.

Upon its launch, the distribution of the tokens will be as follows: half of the tokens will be allocated to the community reserve for grants, validator subsidies, and research and development purposes, whereas one-fifth of the tokens will be granted to the early contributors to the project. The investors will receive 14 percent of the tokens, while 10 percent will be assigned to the Mysten Labs treasury, the creator of Sui Network. Additionally, 6 percent of the tokens will be directed toward the Community Access Program (CAP) and app testers.

Why is the crypto community eying SUI token?

Earlier this week, Binance announced that it would make SUI tokens available through its Launchpool, which allows users to put their crypto assets into a liquidity pool and earn rewards. The introduction of the SUI token on Binance Launchpool generated a lot of interest for SUI within the crypto community.

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Following the announcement, Tron founder Justin Sun made a large deposit of TrueUSD (TUSD) stablecoins into Binance, which are required to farm SUI tokens. The transfer was caught by Whale Alert, a platform that tracks large asset transfers across blockchain addresses.

After the transfer caught the attention of the community, Changpeng Zhao (CZ) tweeted that the Launchpool was meant for retail users and not just whales.

CZ suspected a potential SUI token grab, warning that the company would take action against Justin Sun if he used any of the deposited TUSD to obtain Launchpool SUI tokens. Justin Sun responded by explaining that the deposit was to facilitate market-making between leading TUSD exchanges and not to participate in any exchange promotion.

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The next day, Justin Sun tweeted that he had arranged a full refund of the $56 million transfer to Binance. Later, the crypto exchange tweeted that it would reallocate the market maker’s 278,752 farmed SUI tokens to its platform’s TUSD liquidity pool.

Conclusion

Founded by former tech leads of Meta’s abandoned digital wallet, Novi, the Sui blockchain aims to overcome challenges the crypto sector faces, such as scalability, security, and gas fees.

Given the recent interest in SUI because of the abovementioned developments, it will be interesting to see how its initial coin offering (ICO) progresses in the coming days. As per CoinMarketCap, the sale began on April 21 and is expected to end on May 4.

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