Sui (SUI) opened its confidential transfers feature to public testing on June 8, hiding token balances and transfer amounts onchain while leaving senders, receivers, and auditor access visible. The design splits sharply from privacy coins like Monero (XMR). Sui conceals the numbers but preserves the controls that exchanges, analytics firms, and regulators depend on, aiming the feature at institutions rather than full anonymity. Confidential transfers use Twisted ElGamal cryptography over Ristretto255 paired with zero-knowledge proofs, allowing the network to verify transfers without exposing amounts. Mysten Labs published the open-source code on GitHub as unaudited work in progress. The approach targets payment firms, stablecoin issuers, and treasury teams that cannot broadcast their flows. Bridge is exploring the system as a stablecoin and payments platform, while TRM Labs and Merkle Science are testing risk scoring and monitoring within the confidential model. Sui has faced three mainnet outages in late May, and the success of confidential transfers will depend on partner and regulatory response.

Key facts

• Sui launched confidential transfers public beta on June 8, hiding amounts but not addresses.
• Uses Twisted ElGamal over Ristretto255 with zero-knowledge proofs for compliance-friendly privacy.
• Monero hides sender, receiver, and amount; Sui keeps addresses public for regulatory access.
• Feature targets payment firms, stablecoin issuers, and institutions needing confidential flows.
• Sui suffered three mainnet outages in late May, impacting adoption prospects.

KeyAudit data perspective