Security is the most prominent feature of move and move language is designed for secure smart contracts. Like Rust, it also has memory safety: it prevents dangling references, provides reference transparency for immutable references, and prevents memory leaks. These features significantly reduce the likelihood of Move code being attacked.
Move also features a formal verifier called "Move Prover," which allows developers to verify that their code executes exactly as expected. This verifier runs extremely fast, allowing developers to run tests in minutes and iterate their code quickly.
Unlike Solidity, which permanently locks digital assets in a HashMap, Move allows users to customize their exclusive types for custom-built digital objects. These objects can then flow through smart contracts by being passed as parameters and returned by functions. This intuitive design makes programming digital objects straightforward for dynamic NFT projects and crypto games. Therefore, Move is more secure and has a better data model.
Development History of Move
In 2019, Meta (formerly Facebook) launched the global supranational digital currency project Libra, which reached its peak at its inception but later transformed into Diem due to regulatory constraints and eventually ended without success. At the end of January this year, Meta sold Diem for approximately $182 million. Throughout this process, the Libra and Diem teams left behind a valuable legacy: the Move language, which compensates for the deficiencies of Solidity and EVM, and the derived public chain teams, such as the most representative Aptos, Sui, and Movement.
In December 2021, Sui, the earliest starter, announced a $36 million Series A financing, with investors including a16z, NFX, Scribble Ventures, Redpoint, Lightspeed, Electric Capital, Samsung NEXT, Slow Ventures, Standard Crypto, and Coinbase Ventures.
In March 2022, Aptos completed a $200 million financing, also led by a16z.
In June 2022, Linera announced the completion of a $6 million seed round financing, led by a16z, with participation from Cygni Capital, Kima Ventures, and Tribe Capital.
In July 2022, Aptos completed a $150 million financing, led by FTX Ventures and Jump Crypto, with participation from a16z, Multicoin Capital, and Circle Ventures. At the same time, Sui revealed it was seeking a $200 million Series B financing, with a valuation reaching $2 billion.
In August 2022, Aptos announced the launch of Incentivized Testnet 3 (AIT3) on August 30. The project team announced the success of AIT2, with over 225 community nodes participating in testing, distributed across 44 countries and 110 cities worldwide. According to the project roadmap, the mainnet will launch after the testnet ends.
In September 2023, Movement Labs, the infrastructure of Move language, completed a $3.4 million Pre-Seed round financing, led by Varys Capital, dao5, Blizzard The Avalanche Fund, Borderless Capital, and the cross-chain fund focusing on the Wormhole ecosystem.
On November 12, 2023, Aptos Labs announced the development of a new compiler for the Move smart contract language, the Aptos Move Compiler, which will add new language capabilities to fill the gaps in the original Move language design without compromising security.
In March 2024, the Aptos Foundation announced a partnership with the Ethereum L2 network Movement to integrate Aptos' data availability capabilities with the Move Stack, enabling seamless interaction between Movement and Aptos.
On July 16, 2024, the Ethereum L2 network Movement announced on social media that it would soon launch its testnet.
Technical Characteristics of Move
Move's programmable Resource is its core feature, making it secure and powerful, achieving true digital assetization. Resource is a data type that defines a data structure:
- Characters: For example, names and addresses are of the String type.
- Numbers: For example, age and phone numbers can be of the Int type.
- Boolean: Opposites can be represented using Boolean True and False.
Move considers token assets to be special and important data types that should not be defined and represented using ordinary numerical types. Therefore, it created Resource to define on-chain assets. This approach has three characteristics:
1. Resource still exists in Move as a numerical form, can be stored as a data structure, and can be passed and returned as parameters.
2. Resource can safely represent digital assets. Its uniqueness is that it cannot be copied, discarded, or reused, but it can be safely stored and transferred. Resource values can only be created and destroyed by the module that defines the type, achieving asset realization rather than mere numbers.
3. Resource adapts to the characteristics of blockchain applications, such as binding to accounts. Resource data must be stored under an account, so it only exists when an account is allocated, and Resource must be "used" once it is taken out. Using the built-in Move_from method to extract assets from the account, they must either be passed as return values (i.e., flow to a specific place) or be destroyed directly, meaning the assets taken out must be used as much as they are taken out. In contrast, Solidity reduces the balance of one address and adds it to another, using code to ensure the numbers match. Move, however, encapsulates the concept of assets at the underlying level, avoiding asset creation and arbitrary access out of thin air, greatly enhancing security. Move's token movement can be seen as moving bricks from one place to another, while Solidity is simply addition and subtraction, reducing one and adding to another.
In summary, Move is a more native and fitting programming language dedicated to issuing digital assets, achieving direct integration of programs and digital assets.
Differences between EVM and Move
The EVM's asset management method defines the blockchain asset standard and indeed sets a standard for the blockchain industry. Its method revolves around three key components: centralized asset logic, mutable state, and dynamic asset control. This framework has become synonymous with developing a wide variety of DApps, each utilizing the unique capabilities provided by the Ethereum smart contract platform.
However, EVM's groundbreaking approach to supporting smart contracts and decentralized applications also brings unique challenges in managing digital assets. These challenges stem mainly from the architecture and operation mechanism of EVM, affecting the security, integrity, and trustworthiness of assets managed within its ecosystem.
In contrast, Move's resource model introduces a resource-centric digital asset management approach. Unlike EVM's reliance on centralized asset logic and mutable state, Move's design is based on the principles of security, assurance, and clear resource ownership. Resources in Move are treated as first-class citizens with built-in protections to prevent duplication and unauthorized access, ensuring each asset has a clear owner at all times. By embedding strict ownership and immutability rules directly into the language's type system, this approach inherently mitigates many security issues associated with EVM's centralized logic and mutable state. This model is built on two fundamental pillars: linear ownership and immutable resources, both aiming to enhance the security and efficiency of blockchain technology.
In Move, resources are special types of structures defined as non-copyable and must be explicitly transferred between accounts. This design decision is crucial for maintaining the uniqueness of each asset and preventing common vulnerabilities like unauthorized copying or loss. These resources are managed by strict type safety and access control mechanisms enforced by Move's virtual machine. This architecture ensures that every operation on a resource adheres to a secure, predefined protocol.
Innovation of Movement - A New Model of Parallel Transactions
Parallel blockchain technology shifts from traditional sequential processing to a model where transactions occur simultaneously, leveraging the power of modern multicore processors. Parallelization significantly reduces transaction wait times and improves network energy efficiency. This approach fundamentally transforms the blockchain network by allowing multiple transactions to be processed simultaneously, making it more scalable and efficient. This not only overcomes long-standing issues of latency and high transaction fees but also heralds a new era of blockchain applications characterized by increased scalability and enhanced network performance.
The emergence of parallel execution and the development of platforms like MoveVM are at the forefront of pioneering a new era in blockchain technology. Parallel execution, especially through innovative solutions like MoveVM, makes blockchain technology more accessible, efficient, and capable of supporting a broader range of applications and services, fostering an environment conducive to innovation, growth, and widespread adoption.
Parallel execution fundamentally changes the blockchain landscape by introducing a mechanism that processes transactions simultaneously rather than in a linear sequence. This allows for more transactions to be handled concurrently, effectively reducing wait times and increasing network capacity. At its core, this approach employs advanced algorithms to coordinate the synchronous processing of transactions across different nodes within the blockchain network. This orchestration efficiently maintains the blockchain's consistency and reliability, ensuring that transaction processing does not compromise network integrity.
Parallel execution offers a range of enhancements to address long-standing inefficiencies and scalability issues. This approach introduces several key advantages:
- Alleviates network congestion: Eases traffic bottlenecks in the EVM memory pool.
- Optimizes hardware utilization: Maximizes the rate of multicore processors.
- Enhanced scalability and speed: Accelerates transaction processing for DApps.
- Improved system integrity: Ensures harmonious transactions and prevents conflicts.
By distributing transactions across multiple nodes for simultaneous processing, parallel execution effectively alleviates congestion in the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) memory pool, especially during peak traffic periods. Leveraging the power of modern multicore processors, it optimizes computational resources to reduce energy consumption and increase processing speed.
The scalability and speed enhancements brought about by parallel execution are also efficient for decentralized applications (DApps). Reduced transaction latency allows DApps to operate more seamlessly, supporting a broader range of applications and enabling blockchain to scale to accommodate a growing user base without sacrificing performance.
Finally, parallel execution introduces sophisticated protocols to manage and synchronize transaction processing, effectively preventing potential conflicts and ensuring the blockchain's integrity. This transaction orchestration maintains network security and reliability, marking a significant advancement in overcoming the challenges of traditional blockchain models and ensuring that the network operates with high efficiency, scalability, and innovative technological development.
Popular Ecosystem
Movement
Movement is a modular framework for building and deploying Move-based infrastructure, applications, and blockchains in any distributed environment. Movement co-founders Rushi Manche and Cooper Scanlon stated that they aim to build the first Move-using L2 on Ethereum. The company also plans to launch its own token, tentatively named MOVE.
Aptos
Aptos is a new standalone L1 blockchain project aimed at realizing the vision of providing the world's most secure and production-ready blockchain.
SUI
Sui is a next-generation smart contract platform powered by Move, featuring high throughput, low latency, and an asset-oriented programming model. Sui has the following characteristics:
1. High scalability and instant settlement: Sui scales horizontally to meet application demands.
2. Uses Move smart contracts.
3. Sui's scalability is not limited to transaction processing; it is also low-cost and horizontally scalable in storage, enabling developers to define complex assets with rich attributes that exist directly on-chain rather than in off-chain storage.
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