Smart Contracts
Which platform makes it hardest to write a dangerous smart contract?
DX is the northstar for crypto adoption. Writing safe smart contracts is beyond most developers — too costly, too time-consuming, too dangerous. The chain that engineers risk out at the platform level wins.
Quick Comparison
| Dimension | EVM (Solidity) | SVM (Rust/Anchor) | Move (Sui) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Safety | Opt-in (libraries, audits) | Partial (runtime guards) | Structural (compiler-enforced) |
| Onboarding | Days (JS-like, Remix) | Months (Rust learning curve) | Weeks (novel but purpose-built) |
| Speed | 12s blocks, Foundry v1.0 | 400ms blocks, slow deploys | 390ms finality, fast local tests |
| Composability | Flexible but dangerous | CPI (depth limit 4) | PTBs (1,024 ops) + full stack |
| Ecosystem | 31K devs, deepest tooling | 17K devs, fastest growing | 1.4K devs, completing full stack |
Safety
The pit of success question: does the platform prevent vulnerabilities, or does the developer prevent them?
| Vulnerability | EVM (Solidity) | SVM (Rust/Anchor) | Move (Sui) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Re-entrancy | Manual prevention (OpenZeppelin guard) | Runtime restricts CPI depth to 4 | Impossible by design (no recursive calls) |
| Asset duplication | Manual balance management | Runtime prevents same-slot double-write | Linear types: move only, never copy |
| Integer overflow | Checked since Solidity 0.8 | Panics in debug, wraps in release | Always checked at bytecode verifier level |
| Access control | Modifier-based (convention) | Account ownership + manual signer checks | Capability-based (compiler-enforced) |
| Formal verification | Certora, Halmos, Echidna, Slither | Trident (early) | Move Prover + Sui Prover (open-sourced 2025) |
Re-entrancy alone caused $325M in stolen assets in 2025. Move eliminates the class entirely. 5 of the OWASP Smart Contract Top 10 are structurally impossible in Move.
Onboarding
How fast from zero to deployed contract?
| Dimension | EVM (Solidity) | SVM (Rust/Anchor) | Move (Sui) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Language curve | Days (JS-like syntax) | Months (ownership, borrowing) | Weeks (novel but purpose-built) |
| Concepts before deploy | ~5-6 | ~8-10 | ~6-7 |
| Zero-install path | Remix (browser IDE) | Solana Playground | CLI required |
| IDE support | Mature (Hardhat LSP, Foundry) | Excellent (rust-analyzer) | Growing (Move LSP, trace debugger) |
| Documentation | Massive corpus | Strong, improving | Smallest, growing fast |
| Test framework | Foundry v1.0, Hardhat | LiteSVM + Anchor | sui move test (built-in) |
| Tests in contract language | Yes (Foundry) | No (TypeScript/Rust separate) | Yes (Move #[test]) |
Iteration Speed
| Metric | EVM | SVM | Move (Sui) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Testnet block time | ~12 seconds (Sepolia) | ~400ms (Devnet) | Sub-second (Testnet) |
| Mainnet finality | ~15 minutes | ~13 seconds economic | ~390ms (Mysticeti) |
| Local test speed | Foundry: 2-5x faster than Hardhat | LiteSVM: in-process SVM | Fast compilation, no validator needed |
| Fuzzing | Foundry built-in + Echidna (production) | Trident (early) | Move Prover + Belobog |
Sub-second finality changes what you can build. Real-time agent workflows, on-chain IoT, HFT-style DeFi — these require ~400ms or less.
Composability
Can agents compose transactions without middleware?
| Primitive | EVM | SVM | Move (Sui) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Transaction batching | Multicall + EIP-7702 (2025) | Instructions in one tx, CPI depth 4 | PTBs: 1,024 ops with data flow between |
| Native identity | None (ERC-4337 account abstraction) | None (SPL Name Service) | zkLogin (protocol-level, 7.6M txs) |
| Off-chain storage | IPFS, Arweave (fragmented) | Shadow Drive, Arweave | Walrus (same-stack, $140M raised) |
| Programmable access | — | — | Seal (identity-based encryption) |
| Verifiable compute | — | — | Nautilus (TEE attestations on-chain) |
Sui's extended stack (Walrus + Seal + Nautilus) means identity, storage, encryption, and verifiable compute ship as one platform — not glue code across five vendors.
Ecosystem
| Metric | EVM | SVM | Move (Sui) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly active devs | ~31,900 | ~17,700 | ~1,400 |
| New devs (2024-25) | 16,181 added | 11,534 added (+83% YoY) | 219% growth (H1 2024) |
| Audit cost | Baseline | +25-40% premium | +30-45% premium |
| Production DeFi | Uniswap, Aave, Compound | Raydium, Jupiter, Orca | DeepBook, Cetus, Navi |
| Token standards | ERC-20/721/1155 (mature) | SPL Token, Token-2022 | Sui Coin/NFT (standardizing) |
Smallest ecosystem, fastest percentage growth, highest developer commitment (>50% single-chain). The thesis: DX quality predicts developer migration. Developer activity is the leading indicator.
Standards War
Who controls what "standard" means?
| Dimension | EVM | SVM | Move (Sui) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Governance | EIP/ERC — community-driven, anyone submits | SIMD — foundation-managed, 66.67% validator vote | SIP — Mysten + community, fast-track option |
| Token philosophy | Standard interface, any implementation | Shared program library, foundation-maintained | Language-embedded (compiler IS the standard) |
| Fungible | ERC-20 (each token deploys own contract) | SPL Token (single shared program) | sui::coin (typed object) |
| Non-fungible | ERC-721 (interface standard) | Metaplex NFT standard | Any object with key ability |
| Extensions | ERC-1155, ERC-4337 (AA), ERC-3643 (RWA) | Token-2022 (extensions on shared program) | Composable objects + PTBs |
| Maturity | Thousands of EIPs, battle-tested | Foundation-curated, growing | Smallest — language does the work |
EVM standardizes the INTERFACE — define the shape, let anyone implement. Solana standardizes the PROGRAM — one shared implementation, everyone calls it. Sui standardizes at the LANGUAGE level — there's no separate NFT standard because every object with key is already uniquely identified, owned, and transferable. Three philosophies. The question is whether making standards unnecessary beats having mature ones.
Depth: ERC Standards | SPL Token | Sui Development
Learning Path
Where do you start, and what's the sequence?
| Stage | EVM (Solidity) | SVM (Rust/Anchor) | Move (Sui) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Setup | Node + Foundry | Rust + Solana CLI + Anchor | Rust + Sui CLI |
| Browser IDE | Remix (zero install) | Solana Playground | — (CLI only) |
| First contract | forge init → forge test | anchor init → anchor test | sui move new → sui move test |
| Mental model | Global state + msg.sender | Accounts + PDAs + CPIs | Objects + ownership + capabilities |
| Tokens | ERC-20 / ERC-721 / ERC-1155 | SPL Token / Token-2022 | sui::coin / objects with key |
| Testing | Foundry (same language) | LiteSVM (TypeScript) | sui move test (same language) |
| Frontend | ethers.js/viem + wagmi | @solana/web3.js + wallet-adapter | @mysten/sui + dApp Kit + zkLogin |
| Advanced | Upgrades, AA, DAO, Merkle | NFTs, DePIN, AI agents | PTBs, Walrus, Seal |
| Auditing | Slither + Echidna + Certora | Trident (early) | Move Prover (built-in) |
| Deploy | forge script --broadcast | anchor deploy | sui client publish |
| Best course | Cyfrin Updraft | Bootcamp 2024 | Move Book |
| Time to productive | Weeks | Months | Weeks |
Depth: EVM Development | Solana Development | Sui Development
Dig Deeper
🗃️ EVM Contracts
6 items
🗃️ SVM Programs
4 items
📄️ Sui Move
What does it feel like to onboard as a developer — and how does that compare to EVM and Solana?
Context
- Developer Experience — DX scoring framework and crypto comparison methodology
- Sui Technical — Object model, Move language, agent economy primitives
- Crypto Problems — What keeps going wrong and why
- Blockchain Decisions — Which chain for which use case
- Agent Commerce — The standards war for agent transactions
Links
- Ethereum EIP Process — Community-driven proposal lifecycle
- SIMD Repository — Solana's governance proposals
- SIP Repository — Sui improvement proposals
- Blockchain ISO TC 307 — International standards body
- ITSA Global — Token standardization and classification
- Cyfrin Foundry Course — Full EVM development curriculum
- DeFi Developer Road Map — Comprehensive DeFi learning path
- Panaverse DeFi DApps — Solidity practice contracts
Questions
Does the platform that makes standards unnecessary win against mature community-driven processes?
- How do you weigh onboarding speed against safety depth when choosing a first chain?
- What breaks when language-embedded standards need to evolve faster than the language itself?
- If 95% of smart contract operations become commodity, does the standards layer commoditize too?
- Which governance model — community EIP, foundation SIMD, or language SIP — produces better standards faster?