The Top Move-Based Blockchains of 2025

August 26, 2025 - 17 min read

Top Move-Based Blockchains Include Sui, Aptos, Supra, and Movement

Initially developed for Facebook’s canceled Diem stablecoin project, the Move programming language has given birth to some of the most exciting Layer-1 blockchains of the last several years. Foremost among these in popularity are Sui and Aptos, which have soared to multibillion-dollar market caps and millions of global users. However, newer Move-based blockchains, including Supra and Movement Network (an Ethereum L2), have become increasingly popular.

In this article, we’ll discuss why various blockchains have chosen to utilize the Move programming language. We will then break down some of the top Move-based chains, examining factors such as founders and history, transaction speed and finality, consensus mechanisms, and more.

Why Use The Move Programming Language?

The Move Programming language was designed to help address some of the security concerns and programming issues often experienced by developers using other blockchain programming languages, like Solidity, which is used for Ethereum and many EVM-compatible blockchains. Ideally, Move allows developers to create more secure and efficient smart contracts.

Some of the core benefits of using Move vs. other programming languages include:

Flexibility: The Move programming language offers modules that enable flexible code composition. While Move is not an object-oriented programming language, its structure—comprising modules, procedures, resources, and interactions—shares similarities with object-oriented design. Additionally, Move supports the declaration of multiple resource types, enhancing its expressiveness and adaptability as a programming language.
Safety: Safety is a key priority for the Move programming language. Move emphasizes on-chain bytecode verification to ensure memory safety, resource integrity, and type correctness. Once these checks are complete, the bytecode is executed directly through a bytecode interpreter. This process enables safety features commonly associated with specific source languages, enhancing the reliability of smart contract execution.
Modularity: Move enables the isolation of modules to facilitate functional verification. This design ensures that code outside a specified module cannot compromise the module’s defined types. Over time, this modular approach can support thorough functional verification of key module invariants by focusing on individual, isolated modules.
First-Class Resources: Blockchain languages handle virtual assets, which differ from traditional tangible assets. Digital assets possess two critical qualities: scarcity and access control, allowing only authorized individuals to modify them. It is essential for programming languages to enable developers to express these characteristics effectively. The Move programming language achieves this through its first-class resources, which simplify the creation of digital assets with built-in scarcity and controlled access.
Verification: The Move programming language is designed to support robust on-chain verification of safety features. However, due to the frequent and resource-intensive use of blockchains, verifying all safety traits directly on-chain is not always feasible. To address this, Move incorporates off-chain static verification tools, efficiently handling the complexities of ensuring secure transactions.
Limited Mutability: In the Move programming language, limited mutability ensures that values can only be modified through references. Moreover, only one mutable reference to a value is allowed at any one time. This restriction helps prevent errors that could arise from using multiple mutable references to the same value simultaneously.

It’s important to realize that Move is specifically designed to prevent vulnerabilities common in Solidity, such as “reentrancy.” “Reentrancy” is a type of smart contract vulnerability that allows an attacker to repeatedly call a function in a contract before the previous function call is finished. This can trigger unexpected behavior, sometimes allowing the attacker to drain funds from the contract.

Some of the elements of Move that help prevent reentrancy include:

Mutability Constraints: Move uses strict rules to control how and when state changes are allowed.
Limiting Visibility: Move restricts access to sensitive functions and data.
Eliminating Interface Calls: Move avoids direct external contract calls, which reduces attack surfaces.

Founders and History

Sui

Sui was founded in 2021 by Evan Cheng and a team including individuals such as Sam Blackshear, Adeniyi Abiodun, and George Danezis, who created a new entity, Mysten Labs, to develop the Sui blockchain. Like Aptos, Sui was inspired by Facebook’s (now Meta’s) discontinued Diem/Libra blockchain and stablecoin project, with which all of the core founders were heavily involved. Like Diem, Supra, and Aptos, Sui launched its mainnet in May 2023.

Aptos

Aptos was founded in 2021 by Mohammad Shaikh and Avery Ching to create a more democratized and scalable blockchain network. Aptos was inspired by Facebook’s (now Meta’s) discontinued Diem/Libra blockchain and stablecoin project, with which both Shaikh and Ching were heavily involved. Like Diem/Libra (and Supra). Aptos launched its mainnet in October 2022.

Supra

Supra was established in 2018 by a team that includes current CEO Joshua Tobkin and Chief Business Officer Jon Jones. Known initially as SupraOracles, the company originally focused on building a cutting-edge blockchain oracle solution. In 2023, it rebranded as Supra to reflect its expanded mission of launching a groundbreaking, fully integrated Layer-1 blockchain. This new platform incorporates native oracles, verifiable random function services, automation, and trustless cross-chain bridging. Among the prominent members of Supra’s research team is Aniket Kate, a key contributor to Ethereum 2.0 and co-creator of KZG Commitments (also known as Kate Commitments).

Movement

The Movement Blockchain was first created by Movement Labs, an organization co-founded in 2022 by Vanderbilt University dropouts Cooper Scanlon and Rushi Manche. Scanlon and Manche say that their mission is to democratize and decentralize the growth of the Move programming language, making it accessible to a wide array of developers and applications. Under their leadership, Movement Labs has successfully raised significant funding, including a $38 million Series A round, to advance their vision of integrating the Move Virtual Machine with Ethereum and enhancing blockchain scalability and security.

Starcoin

Starcoin was established in 2018, predating the announcement of the Libra/Diem project, and integrated the Move programming language in Q4 2019.

The network is developed by Hong Kong-based Westar Labs and managed by the Starcoin Foundation, which operates under the oversight of the Governing Council. The most prominent figure representing Starcoin is Tim Yang, CEO and co-founder of Westar Labs and former deputy head of R&D at Weibo.

0L Network

0L stands out among Move-based blockchains as a unique, community-driven initiative. Unlike others, it operates without a formal team listed on its website, a foundation, or venture capital backing. Instead, 0L relies on decentralized governance and contributions from a diverse group of volunteers, including former Meta engineers.

Despite its grassroots approach, the project has notable connections to the blockchain community. One prominent figure associated with 0L is Zaki Manian, co-founder of Sommelier Finance and Iqlusion, a former director at Tendermint Labs, and a key contributor to Cosmos. The 0L Network launched in October 2021.

Transaction Speed and Finality

Aptos: 160,000 Theoretical TPS

Aptos has reached an impressive 160,000 TPS under theoretical conditions; however, according to the Aptos blockchain explorer Aptoscan, Aptos reached a maximum real-world speed of 33,000 TPS on May 25, 2024. In recent months, Aptos has had a significantly lower TPS level. Aptos also claims that it can achieve finality in 0.9 seconds.

Sui: 297,000 Theoretical TPS

Sui has a theoretical capacity of around 297,000 transactions per second (TPS). Sui’s official blockchain explorer, Suiscan, showed that Sui reached a maximum real-world TPS of 860 in 2024. However, Sui has had a significantly lower TPS level in recent months, averaging only 92 TPS during the last quarter of 2024.

Sui claims that it can achieve finality in 400 milliseconds.

Supra: 500,000 Theoretical TPS

Supra launched its mainnet on Nov. 26, 2024. Under testnet conditions, Supra achieved record speeds of 500,000 transactions per second (TPS), reaching finality in as little as 500 milliseconds.

Movement: 12,000 Theoretical TPS

Movement, which launched its testnet on June 30, 2024, reportedly reached a maximum TPS of 12,000, which, while much lower than Sui, Aptos, and Supra, is still relatively impressive for an Ethereum Layer-2. However, Movement Co-Founder Rushi Manche believes this is only a fraction of the network’s future possible performance and stated that he believes that Movement can easily reach “30 to 50 thousand” transactions per second in the near future. However, the Movement Explorer shows a Maximum real-world TPS of just 148, showing that theoretical and real-world network speeds can be substantially different.

Starcoin: 130,000 Theoretical TPS

In June 2024, Starcoin reported on its X account that its Mainnet 2.0 would have a speed of 130,000 TPS. This is significantly up from 2022 reports that the network would have a maximum TPS of closer to 4,600. Looking at Starcoin’s official block explorer, it’s somewhat unclear what the current TPS of the network is, but as of early 2025, it seems to be in the range of 1-5.

0L Network: Unknown Theoretical TPS

Due to the decentralized and open-source nature of 0L Network, it’s unclear what the maximum theoretical TPS of the blockchain might be. However, by checking the network’s unofficial block explorer, we can see that it is processing at least 2-3 transactions per second as of early 2025.

Consensus

Sui: Narwhal + Mysticeti Consensus

Sui’s consensus mechanism features two core components, Narwhal and Mysticeti, which together ensure high throughput and low latency. Narwhal is a data availability layer that organizes transactions into a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG). This structure allows validators to process transactions concurrently, enabling the network to achieve remarkable efficiency and scalability. By decoupling data availability from the consensus process, Narwhal ensures that validators can reliably access and share transaction data without delays or bottlenecks.

Building on Narwhal, Mysticeti is a Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) consensus protocol designed to minimize latency. Unlike traditional BFT protocols, Mysticeti optimizes the process by allowing validators to sign and share blocks without requiring prior certification. This significantly reduces the number of communication rounds needed to finalize transactions.

Aptos: Shoal Consensus

Aptos’ Shoal consensus is an innovative framework designed to enhance the performance of Narwhal-based consensus protocols, such as Bullshark, by significantly reducing latency and improving robustness. Shoal introduces pipelining and leader reputation mechanisms, which streamline the consensus process and minimize delays.

Pipelining reduces Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) ordering latency by introducing an anchor every round, while leader reputation ensures that these anchors are associated with the fastest validators, thereby enhancing efficiency.

By integrating these features, Shoal achieves a property termed “Prevalent Responsiveness,” allowing the system to eliminate timeouts in all but highly uncommon scenarios. This advancement enables Aptos to process transactions with reduced latency, achieving up to a 40% reduction in failure-free executions and up to an 80% reduction in executions with failures compared to the standard Bullshark implementation.

Supra: Moonshot Consensus

Supra’s Moonshot Consensus is an innovative blockchain consensus mechanism designed to address the challenges of scalability and fault tolerance. This approach introduces a family of blockchain-based State Machine Replication (SMR) protocols, primarily focusing on “Chained Moonshot,” which emphasizes Optimistic Proposal.

Moonshot protocols are Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT), ensuring high resilience in the face of malicious actors. The consensus mechanism allows validators to propose blocks in an optimistic manner, where they rely on a fast and efficient protocol for finality while minimizing the overhead of traditional systems.

Movement: Snowman (Avalanche) Consensus

The Movement Network uses the Snowman consensus mechanism, which is a variant of Avalanche’s consensus protocol. Snowman is designed to provide high scalability and low-latency finality by utilizing a directed acyclic graph (DAG) structure. Unlike traditional blockchain architectures that operate linearly, Snowman enables validators to work concurrently on transaction batches, which helps optimize throughput and reduces bottlenecks.

In this consensus model, validators vote on transactions like classical Byzantine Fault Tolerant (BFT) protocols, but in a more decentralized and efficient manner. The key feature of Snowman is its use of the Avalanche protocol, which allows for quick finality and supports a high degree of parallelism in transaction processing. This reduces the number of rounds required for achieving consensus, significantly lowering the latency and enabling the Movement Network to process thousands of transactions per second.

However, this just refers to the internal consensus mechanism of the Movement Network. Since Movement is an Ethereum Layer-2, not an independent Layer-1, Movement relies on the Ethereum mainnet for consensus by submitting compressed transaction data back to the mainnet.

Starcoin: Enhanced Proof-of-Work Consensus

Starcoin employs an enhanced Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism, integrating Bitcoin’s original PoW approach with innovative technologies to bolster security and scalability. Central to this enhancement is the incorporation of FlexiDAG, a Directed Acyclic Graph consensus algorithm, and TurboSTM, an industry-leading parallelization technology. FlexiDAG allows for the dynamic adjustment of key network parameters, accelerating block production and reducing transaction confirmation times. TurboSTM significantly boosts transaction processing capacity, increasing it by 17 times compared to previous phases.

0L Network: Proof-of-Stake Consensus

0L Network uses a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, but due to the decentralized and community-lead nature of the project, the exact details are unclear.

Oracles and VRF

Oracles are essential to blockchains because they enable smart contracts to interact with real-world data, bridging the gap between the on-chain and off-chain ecosystems. Without oracles, blockchains are isolated systems that cannot directly access external information, limiting their functionality and applicability.

For example, oracle price feeds are crucial for blockchain dApps like decentralized exchanges (DEXs) because they provide accurate and real-time market data for setting fair trading prices, calculating collateral ratios, and enabling automated functions like swaps or liquidations. Without reliable price feeds, DEXs risk inefficiencies, arbitrage opportunities, and potential losses for users.

Sui, Aptos, Movement, Starcoin, and 0L Network all need to use external networks for oracles, such as Pyth, Chainlink, or Supra. Unfortunately, this can lead to security issues and increase inefficiencies when trading.

However, since Supra has its own native oracle service, dApps developed on Supra don’t need to go elsewhere for fast, decentralized price feeds. Supra’s oracles have near-instant refresh rates with full on-chain finality and utilize a randomized node network along with inbuilt fail-safes to maximize security guarantees.

In addition to oracles, Verifiable Random Functions (VRFs) are crucial for ensuring fairness and transparency for blockchain dApps. VRFs can be used for various applications, such as generating NFTs with randomized traits, conducting blockchain lotteries, and generating randomized loot box rewards for GameFi applications. By providing cryptographically secure and provably unbiased randomness, VRFs enhance trust in these systems.

Sui, Movement, Starcoin, and 0L Network have no native VRF services, so they must use external VRFs like Supra VRF or Chainlink VRF.

Aptos does not yet have a well-established, fully integrated decentralized VRF service, but it does have Aptos Roll, which can be used for certain randomness functions, including blockchain lotteries. ORAO Network also provides another Move-based VRF SDK that can be utilized for Aptos.

Supra, however, does have its own native, decentralized VRF. Supra VRF is extremely low latency, allowing applications to generate truly randomized outcomes almost instantly, leverages batching to achieve scale, and utilizes a secret sharing algorithm to distribute power across multiple nodes so no one node can compromise the randomization process.

Bridging and Interoperability

Sui

Sui has a native bridge, Sui Bridge. According to the official Sui website: “Sui Bridge is a cutting-edge native bridge on Sui, designed to enhance interoperability between Sui and Ethereum. It enables users to securely and efficiently transfer assets like native ETH, wrapped ETH, and USDT to and from Sui.”