Mysten Labs launches Tidehunter on Sui, enabling gasless payments, faster validators, and scalable blockchain infrastructure ahead of 2026 roadmap.
Mysten Labs has launched Tidehunter for the Sui network, marking a major technical milestone. The release of this is the first step towards gasless and stable transfers on Sui. Moreover, the move is a signal of a larger initiative for redesigning Sui as a full-stack blockchain platform.
Mysten Labs Introduces Tidehunter to Upgrade Sui Infrastructure
Tidehunter is a purpose-built storage engine for Sui validators and nodes that is developed by Mysten Labs. It replaces RocksDB as the main DB layer. Therefore, the launch is the start of a deep technical overhaul in terms of things such as performance, scalability, and efficiency in the long term.
BREAKING: MYSTEN LABS LAUNCHES TIDEHUNTER FOR SUI NETWORK, THE FIRST STEP TOWARD GASLESS, STABLE TRANSFERS ON SUI. pic.twitter.com/fjVo2nCM8x
— Noodles Finance 🍜 (@NoodlesFi) February 4, 2026
According to Mysten Labs, structural mismatches are created for blockchain workloads by general purpose databases. RocksDB has a severe write amplification during sustained activity. For example, 40MB/s of data can cause close to 500MB/s of disk writes. As a result, this inefficiency becomes a throughput limitation.
Tidehunter removes this problem by changing the way that data is stored. Instead of storing the write-ahead log as temporary storage, then it becomes permanent storage. As a result, values are written once, and are never copied again. This change causes the write amplification to be brought down to near zero.
Additionally, all writes go through a lock-free ultra-fast write-ahead log. The system is capable of taking care of more than 1,000,000 operations in a second. Moreover, it uses memory mapped files to avoid system call overhead and hence improve the overall speed.
Tidehunter also presents a uniform lookup index that is optimized for cryptographic hash keys. Special data location is efficiently predicted by this design. Therefore, most read requests are completed in one disk round-trip. Tail latency is cut down dramatically during peak loads.
In benchmark testing, Tidehunter had stable performance beyond 6,000 transactions per second. In contrast, systems supported by RocksDB started stalling. This improvement underscores the scalability of the engine for high-demand blockchain environments.
Currently, Sui trades around $1.12 as of February 4, 2026. The token has lost approximately 32.8% in the last month. Additionally, prices decreased almost 21.2% last week. Despite this, development activity is very strong.
Sui’s Roadmap Targets Gasless Payments by 2026
Tidehunter is a storage basis for Sui’s 2026 roadmap. This roadmap is to create a gas-free user experience. Therefore, infrastructure efficiency becomes the key to long-term adoption and usability.
One major goal is to conduct sponsored transactions at scale. Gas pools are also already supported by Sui for sponsored usage. However, Tidehunter enables validators to efficiently process millions of small transactions. Disk input and output saturation is therefore avoided.
Another priority is based on stablecoin-first user experiences. Mysten Labs is planning to make stablecoin transfers 100% gasless. Tokens like the upcoming USDsui are the centerpiece of this vision. As a result, everyday payments could become frictionless for users.
Furthermore, the roadmap focuses on supporting the autonomous AI agents. These agents are write-intensive transaction which requires frequent writes. Tidehunter is optimized for such workloads. As a result, machine-to-machine payments are made viable on-chain.
Mysten Labs says that Sui is evolving into a full-stack platform. This incorporates storage, execution, and application layers. Hence, the blockchain can accommodate complex financial and AI-driven systems with efficiency.
The Tidehunter launch is a part of a growing trend throughout blockchain networks. Infrastructure improvements are more user-centric. Gas fees are a big obstacle to adoption across the industry.
On the whole, Tidehunter is not only a replacement for a database. It forms the foundation of gasless payments and independent activity. As the 2026 roadmap progresses, Sui is focused on offering a seamless and scalable blockchain experience.