Sui adds confidential transfers with protocol supply checks

On June 5, Sui co-founder Adeniyi Abiodun announced the network will add confidential transfers that hide transaction amounts using range proofs while keeping supply enforcement at the protocol level to prevent unauthorized minting.

Range proofs let a transaction prove that an amount falls within a valid range without revealing the exact number to anyone outside the transaction. Under Sui’s design, the privacy proof handles only amount confidentiality; a separate protocol-level check confirms that no new tokens have been created.

Sui’s team described the split as a way to reduce the attack surface. When a single proof tries to guarantee both privacy and supply integrity, a flaw can allow counterfeit tokens to go undetected. The announcement referenced a past counterfeiting bug in the Orchard system as an example of such a failure.

The network has also launched free-tier payments and is developing native payment intents to let software agents execute payments on-chain. A decentralized storage project named Walrus is being positioned as a memory layer to support those agents.

Abiodun wrote in the announcement thread: “Bear markets separate the teams who build from the teams who tweet. We chose building. Heads down, every day, on infrastructure most people won’t appreciate until the moment they suddenly need it.”

The announcement follows a period of operational issues. Sui recovered from three mainnet outages tied to upgrade bugs, and earlier network stalls contributed to a sharp drop in the SUI token. The team said it plans to release confidential transfers as part of its ongoing privacy and payments work; no firm release date was provided.

Sui describes the confidential-transfer feature as intended to support decentralized applications and machine actors that need private value transfers while keeping the ledger’s supply checks enforced at protocol level.