Not All Reads Are Conflicts: A Write-Only Analysis of the Sui Blockchain

Abstract

Sui’s object-centric data model enables parallel transaction execution, but realised performance is fundamentally bounded by workload contention. Prior empirical analyses of Sui have relied on "read+write" (R+W) conflict graphs inherited from account-based blockchains. Because Sui’s engine serialises only on mutable shared access, R+W graphs contain spurious edges, bounding contention from above. In this paper, we adopt a complementary "write-set-only" (W-only) model in which every edge represents a real write-serialisation event, providing a lower bound on contention. Together, the two models bracket Sui’s true execution-dependency structure. Applying the W-only analysis to Sui mainnet data through 2025 yields three primary findings. First, removing read-only dependencies (notably the system clock) causes previously reported "hub-and-spoke" structures to collapse. The remaining contention topology is highly assortative and clique-dominated, with the W-only bound shaving roughly 30-40% off the R+W estimate of Sui’s optimal-parallelism headroom. Second, via union-find object grouping, we isolate DeepBook (Sui’s native central limit order book). While it dominates contention by volume, its underlying logic does not impose disproportionate sequential bottlenecks. Finally, we quantify the economic cost of contention, showing that 10-50% of the network’s USD-denominated value flows through sequentially constrained execution paths, exposing it to potential ordering effects.