EL7.AI
CryptoMedium•21 October 2026•
4 min read

Data explains shift to Sui after $30 million investment and focus on data rights

Key Facts

1The Sui Foundation is investing $30 million in the Data network as part of a partnership to move the protocol to Sui and shut down its independent blockchain.
2Trace recorded more than 250 million contributions between its launch and the partnership announcement.
3Trace processes an average of more than 3 million registration receipts daily, according to the official announcement.
4The DATA token will migrate to Sui at a 1:1 ratio, retaining lockup and vesting status and economic and governance rights at least equivalent to current rights.

Andrea Muttoni, chief executive of the Data Foundation, explained the reasons for moving its protocol to the Sui network following a $30 million strategic investment from the Sui Foundation, in an interview published by CoinDesk on October 21. His remarks follow the formal announcement of the partnership on October 12, 2026, which includes shutting down Data's independent blockchain and moving the protocol to Sui. The investment gives the Sui Foundation the largest institutional stake in the network, according to the foundation's announcement. PIP Labs and the Data Foundation retain their holdings alongside it. Muttoni links the shift to the team's desire to focus its efforts on the product, particularly tools for verifying AI training data, rather than shouldering the requirements of running an independent blockchain.

The decision to migrate is part of a broader shift for a project previously known as Story Protocol, according to CoinDesk. The project had raised $140 million in earlier funding before the move to Sui. In June, it rebranded as the Data Foundation as it shifted toward AI training data. Its current focus, as Muttoni explained it, involves tracking the provenance of that data, contributors' consent terms and its licensing history through the Trace registry. The project is thus moving from rebranding and defining its scope to restructuring the infrastructure that runs its protocol, placing the review of data usage rights at the heart of the product it is developing.

The costs of running an independent blockchain are one factor behind the decision, according to Muttoni's account in the interview. That task requires engineers and validator operators, alongside audits and infrastructure providers, commitments associated with operating the project's own chain. The team wants to direct its efforts toward the product as the protocol moves to infrastructure provided by Sui. For data storage, Walrus will become the default storage layer for applications operated by the Data Foundation, according to The Block's coverage. The restructuring thus encompasses protocol operations and application data storage, two specific aspects of the transition away from reliance on an independent blockchain run by the project.

Explaining the background to the focus on data verification, Muttoni cited an experience with suppliers that offered Poseidon datasets marketed as exclusive. He said those datasets were "already available from other vendors," despite being presented as exclusive. That experience, according to his account to CoinDesk, helped shape the project's verification strategy. The Trace registry tracks the provenance of training data, alongside contributors' consent terms and the associated licensing history. These functions allow usage rights to be reviewed, with the registry covering the source of the data, the terms under which it was provided and its licensing record, the elements the project is focusing on in its current direction.

According to the Sui Foundation's announcement, Trace recorded more than 250 million contributions between its launch and the partnership announcement. The registry processes an average of more than 3 million registration receipts daily, according to figures the foundation provided on its activity at the time of the announcement. That activity combines contributions recorded since operations began with registration receipts processed as part of the system's daily operations. In another aspect of data ingestion, the announcement said the Clade platform is bringing more than 1.5 billion records into the system. These operations form part of Data's work registering data and tracking its provenance and usage rights, alongside the change in the network on which the protocol will run.

For token holders, the official announcement provides for the DATA token to migrate to Sui at a 1:1 conversion ratio. The arrangement includes economic rights at least equivalent to current rights when the migration to the new network takes place. The same condition applies to governance rights, which must be at least equivalent to their current level under the announced migration terms. Lockup status remains unchanged, as do the vesting arrangements associated with the tokens. These terms define how token holdings and their accompanying rights will move to Sui, retaining existing lockup and vesting restrictions within the migration arrangement announced by the foundation.

In the next phase, the current Data network will continue operating until the migration is complete, according to The Block. Its shutdown is tied to completion of the migration covered by the partnership, keeping it operational during the transition period. The foundation intends to publish a detailed timetable before implementing the upgrade. That timetable will be announced before implementation, according to the sequence The Block reported from the foundation's plans. The next steps combine continued operation of the current network until the migration is complete with advance disclosure of the timing details for the upgrade that will move the protocol to its new infrastructure.