Sui airdrops explained for cautious participants

Most airdrop advice assumes an Ethereum-style account: one address, tokens held in a contract, approvals you can revoke. Sui does not work that way. Its documentation describes a model built around objects, and a few of its features, such as zkLogin and sponsored transactions, change both the convenience and the risk of taking part in a campaign.

This page is for readers who want to follow rewards on Sui without learning the hard way. It covers the account model, the costs, the tools named in official documentation, the scam patterns that fit this network, and a short list of what we would verify before touching any campaign. For the general method, see our guides on what an airdrop is and how to tell a legitimate one.

Why Sui looks different to an airdrop hunter

The Sui Move documentation says Sui uses address as a 32-byte identifier for both objects and accounts. An account is the sender that signs a transaction. Everything else, including coins and NFTs, is an object with its own identifier, and the docs state that Sui has no global storage in which an account owns resources, as in the earlier Diem model.

Two practical consequences follow. First, transactions declare all their inputs up front, so the network can process transactions that do not overlap in parallel. Second, what a wallet user thinks of as "my tokens" is really a set of objects owned by an address. That is why the ownership type matters for safety.

Compared with an EVM chain, the documentation we read describes tokens as objects you own rather than balances inside someone else's contract, so the classic unlimited token approval is not part of the model it describes. That does not make Sui safe by default. A malicious transaction can still ask you to sign a transfer of objects you own, and a wallet that shows you a vague prompt makes that easy to miss. Our editorial judgement: the risk shifts from "approvals that live forever" to "one transaction that moves a lot at once", so read what the wallet says it will transfer.

What the record shows

We keep a tracked list for each network, and the list at the top of this page is generated from it. For Sui it is empty: we have no project tagged to Sui that we can verify as active, potential or snapshot-stage from first-party sources. That is a statement about our verified records, not a claim that nothing is happening on the network.

SUI itself exists and trades, which is why a live market panel appears above. What we cannot responsibly do is name a specific upcoming Sui reward, estimate its size or tell you which on-chain actions will count. No official Sui page we reviewed publishes a network-wide airdrop programme, and the documentation describes the protocol rather than any reward scheme.

If you want to follow the Sui ecosystem anyway, use public signals rather than rumours: official project documentation, announced points programmes and governance posts. Our guide to points programmes explains why points are not a promise of tokens, and the potential airdrops list shows what we do track across networks.

Wallets, explorers and bridges named in official sources

We list only tools that appear in Sui documentation or on sui.io. Inclusion is a pointer to the official directory, not an endorsement of any product.

Wallets

The sui.io get-started page lists, among others, Slush, Suiet, Nightly, Backpack, OKX, Bitget Wallet, and hardware options such as Ledger and Keystone. We cannot rank them on security.

Explorers

The Sui docs reference SuiVision and SuiScan for viewing accounts, objects and transactions.

Bridges

The same directory lists Sui Bridge, described as the native bridge to Ethereum, and Portal Bridge, which transfers through Wormhole.

Key schemes

The address guide says the CLI supports ed25519, secp256k1 and secp256r1, and that sui client new-address prints a new address and a 12-word recovery phrase.

Always open these from the official docs or type them yourself. Wallet and bridge impersonation sites are common wherever a chain has gained attention, and a bridge asks for the most trust of all because you send it funds.

What taking part costs

The gas page gives the structure rather than a single "typical" price. Total fees equal computation units times the reference gas price, plus storage units times the storage price, minus any storage rebate. Computation is bucketed from a minimum of 1,000 units to a maximum of 5,000,000; a transaction that needs more aborts. Each stored byte counts as 100 storage units, and the storage fee has a rebateable part (initially 99%) so deleting stored data can return value.

Validators set the reference gas price at each epoch boundary, and most transactions pay only that price. The gas budget must be at least 2,000 MIST and at most 50 billion MIST (50 SUI), and, according to the docs, a failed transaction still charges part of the budget. The docs' own examples run from about 475,000 MIST net for a small write with deletion to 7,400,000 MIST for a 120-byte write. At 1 SUI = 1,000,000,000 MIST, as the figures imply, those are well below one hundredth of a SUI. The docs do not translate that to dollars, and we do not either.

What this means for airdrop activity: fees on Sui are small per transaction, but they scale with how much you store and how often you act. That is a reason to avoid scripted high-volume farming, not a reason to ignore cost. For the broader trade-off, see our guide to airdrop farming.

zkLogin and sponsored gas: two features that change the risk

zkLogin

zkLogin lets a user control a Sui address through an existing OAuth login. The docs say there are no seed phrases and no persistent private keys: the app creates a short-lived ephemeral key, and a zero-knowledge proof built from the OAuth token and a per-user salt authorises transactions. The address derives from the provider's user ID, the provider, the app's client ID and the salt. Mainnet providers include Google, Facebook, Twitch and Apple, among others.

Two details matter. The salt is critical: lose it and you lose access to that address. And the address is stable while sessions expire, so you re-authenticate to continue. For airdrop research, our judgement is that a zkLogin address ties your activity to an identity you already use. That is convenient, but it does not give you the separation a dedicated wallet would. See how to set up a burner wallet for a different approach.

Sponsored transactions

In a sponsored transaction the sender is the user and the gas owner is the sponsor. Both sign the full transaction including gas data. The docs list several flows and warn about object conflicts, censorship by a sponsor (a user can submit directly to a full node), and abuse. For a participant this has one clear message: a "gasless" claim is possible and legitimate, but you are still signing a transaction. Read the wallet prompt even when you pay nothing.

Sui-specific scam patterns

The documentation does not catalogue scams, so this list is our editorial analysis of how general patterns map onto Sui's design. It is not a report of specific incidents.

1. Unsolicited objects. Because tokens and NFTs are objects that can be sent to any address, a stranger can place an object in your account. Treat unexpected objects as a lure and do not interact with the site they point to.
2. Wallet-drain prompts that move many objects. A single signature can transfer several objects at once. Check the count and types listed in the prompt.
3. Fake bridge pages. The native bridge is at bridge.sui.io per the Sui directory. Search ads and social posts can imitate it.
4. "Verify your wallet" social-login pages. zkLogin means a fake OAuth screen can look convincing. Start from the app you already use, never from a link in a message.
5. Seed phrase requests. No legitimate claim needs your 12-word phrase. See the scam guide for the general rules.

What we would check first

This is our working order when a Sui campaign appears. It is editorial judgement, not an official procedure.

You can log what you follow in the airdrop tracker, and our ecosystems index shows how Sui compares with the other networks we cover. For another Move-based chain, see Aptos.

Written by the airdrop.promo Editorial Team. See how we verify. Educational content only, not financial advice.