Sui adds confidential transfers with protocol supply checks

On June 5, Sui co-founder Adeniyi Abiodun announced the network will add confidential transfers that use range proofs to hide transaction amounts while the protocol enforces supply conservation. The feature is part of the network’s ongoing work on privacy infrastructure and agent payment tooling.

Range proofs let a sender prove that a transferred amount falls within an allowed range without revealing the exact number. On Sui, those proofs will be used only to conceal amounts. The protocol itself will verify that no new tokens are created during a transfer rather than relying on a single proof to guarantee both privacy and supply integrity.

Sui’s design separates privacy from supply enforcement. The protocol-level supply check handles token conservation while range proofs handle privacy. The team pointed to a past counterfeiting bug in Zcash’s Orchard system, which allowed unauthorized minting, as a reason for keeping the checks at the protocol level.

Confidential transfers are listed alongside other releases. Sui has rolled out free tier payments and is developing native payment intents to allow AI agents to transact on-chain. Walrus, the network’s decentralized storage project, is being positioned as a memory layer for those agents. The project team described the work as active and focused on infrastructure for private payments and agent-enabled transactions.

The announcement follows operational issues earlier this year. The network recovered from three mainnet outages tied to upgrade bugs and from earlier network stalls that contributed to a sharp drop in the token’s price.

In the announcement thread, Abiodun wrote: “Bear markets separate the teams who build from the teams who tweet. We chose building. Heads down, every day, on infrastructure most people won’t appreciate until the moment they suddenly need it.”