One of the key goals on the path to building a decentralized internet is to build a healthy and robust ecosystem of providers. So some may not be surprised to learn that we are excited to announce that the Mysten-operated explorer is being retired! The catalyst for this comes with the recognition that amazing explorers have arisen on Sui over the past year, giving us the opportunity to praise and emphasize what is being built in the Sui ecosystem. Going forward, the Sui Explorer site will remain live and showcase Sui ecosystem explorers SuiVision and Suiscan.

Goals achieved

When we began productionizing Sui, first as Devnet and leading up to Testnet, we knew early builders would need an explorer, giving them a realtime dashboard for the network. Explorers let you see transaction volume, the number of active accounts, and loads of other useful information.

Sui’s object-oriented data model enabled several new features in explorer design, including: 

• The object display standard allows explorers to visualize all of the objects owned by each address.

• The visualization of Sui Move features, such as rendering PTBs. Package pages also provide source verification of Move code. 

• The page for a transaction shows the input and output objects of each transaction.

• Each object has a dedicated page that shows its metadata and fields as well as any objects that it owns via dynamic fields.

Ecosystem expansion

With Mainnet launch on May 3, 2023, builders began a flurry of activity, moving projects over from Testnet and some even launching entirely new projects. The ecosystem explorers however had been with us prior to Mainnet launch. Their dedicated teams came up with new features that gave the community deeper insight into the network than the Mysten-run explorer offered.

For example, where Mysten’s explorer shows a 30-day chart of transaction volume on Sui, clicking into the same chart on the ecosystem explorers offers more timeline options and shows a myriad of complementary data.

Both Suiscan and SuiVision also track DeFi apps and NFT collections, using the available data to show trends and top projects. 

Explorers also distinguish themselves through their interfaces. Even though two explorers may contain much of the same data, people will gravitate towards interfaces that best serve their needs. The explorers on Sui show distinct navigation schemes and site architecture, appealing to different users.

Passing the baton

With our mission achieved to bootstrap the explorer ecosystem, we are now confident in retiring the Sui Explorer and letting our ecosystem builders shine! Continuing to help build a network that through digital asset ownership and strong security, vastly improves our online lives.

You'll get to hear about some of these exciting initiatives during Basecamp, the premier Sui event of the year, in April, 2024. And we'll have many new announcements coming throughout the year.