Sui overview | ITS | Axelar Docs

Connect Sui coins to the Interchain Token Service, and send them to and from other chains.

The Interchain Token Service (ITS) runs on Sui as the Move package interchain_token_service, version 1.2.0 on mainnet and testnet. It sends and receives everything through the ITS Hub, as GMP messages.

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Using an AI agent?

Copy this page with Copy Markdown at the top and give it to your agent, with the coin you want to make interchain. The copied page links to the Markdown of the other pages it refers to, so the agent can read them too. Review what it writes, and test on testnet before mainnet.

What you can do

You want to	See
Bring a coin from Sui to other chains, as interchain tokens that ITS deploys	Register an existing coin
Connect your coin on Sui to your own token contracts on other chains, either way	Link custom coins
Call ITS from your own Move package, e.g. to receive coins with data	Contract reference

How a transfer works

Sending, in one transaction:

prepare_interchain_transfer puts the coins, the destination and an optional payload in an InterchainTransferTicket, with your channel as the sender.
send_interchain_transfer takes the coins (locks them, or burns them with the coin's TreasuryCap) and returns a MessageTicket for the ITS Hub.
The transaction pays gas for the ticket (pay_gas) and sends it (send_message), as for any GMP message.

Receiving: the ITS Hub forwards the transfer, and Axelar's relayer calls receive_interchain_transfer on Sui ITS, which unlocks or mints the coins and sends them to the destination address. A transfer with data goes to a Move package instead; see Receive coins with data.

Every call that goes to another chain (a transfer, a remote deployment, a link, a metadata registration) returns a MessageTicket that you pay gas for and send in the same way. Estimate the fee as described in Estimate ITS fees. Express currently doesn't work for ITS transfers.

Addresses

	Mainnet	Testnet
Chain name	`sui`	`sui`
ITS package, to call	`0xbaec6524bedbc95fa4c3314271ecf5d2ce7d8a602c8413c03a5264c949c7263d`	`0x0f9fb8246525699ac7e0a9742094f3491e20b0f3b2a5faf503f139df383390f0`
ITS original package, in type names	`0xc3c0222e59c9d3b34ab804840e271ef9a0e6f0adcc280133c9db9b9e060887ca`	`0xe7818984af6b3e322a6d999ca291a125fc3f82e13e5e6d9affc3a712f96bc7ce`
`InterchainTokenService` object	`0xef0d515e2f6be9199150e63758035bca7b1e016dcc1a93cec123abb35880b379`	`0x55fcd94e5293ff04c512a23c835d79b75e52611f66496e2d02cca439b84fa73c`
ITS channel (its address on Axelar)	`0x43f65158c85e1bc1e27a4a1ecc49a0089283051c04b4bb21a69bbbe06078c2f8`	`0xae0eaa7d1f1ddfba704f87391380b932b0e8a1e778bc70355dba7d3b1add0119`

The gateway and gas service are on the GMP Sui overview. The current IDs are always in the deployment configs, under chains.sui.contracts.InterchainTokenService: mainnet | testnet.

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Call the latest package

ITS was upgraded in place, so it has two packages. Call functions on the latest one, e.g. <ITS package>::interchain_token_service::link_coin: the original package's functions are disabled, and calls to them abort. A type keeps the ID of the package that first defined it: most have the original package's, e.g. <ITS original package>::token_id::TokenId, and those added in the upgrade, such as TreasuryCapReclaimer and TokenManagerType, have the latest one.

Setup

You need:

The Sui CLI. The commands on these pages were tested with version 1.83.
A testnet address with SUI: sui client faucet, or see Get SUI tokens.

The guides call ITS with programmable transactions (sui client ptb), so they don't need a Move dependency on ITS. To call ITS from your own package, see Depend on ITS.

Sui specifics

Coin management. On Sui, ITS keeps each coin's token manager inside its own object, as a CoinManagement. You create it before registering the coin: with the coin's TreasuryCap for mint and burn (new_with_cap), or without for lock and unlock (new_locked). See Token managers.
Token IDs. Sui derives token IDs differently from EVM chains: from the coin's type and details for a canonical coin, and from a channel and a salt for a custom coin. They're the same on every chain once registered. See Token IDs.
Channels as identity. Sui has no msg.sender. The sender of a transfer, the deployer of a custom coin and the holders of roles are channels, identified by their object IDs.
Decimals and amounts. Sui amounts are u64. When an interchain token is deployed to Sui from a chain with larger amounts, such as an EVM chain, the ITS Hub gives it at most 6 decimals on Sui, and scales amounts between the chains, rounding down. A transfer whose amount would round to zero, or not fit in a u64, fails at the hub.
Flow limits and roles work differently from EVM chains: see Roles and Flow limits.

Next steps

Register an existing coin and send it to another chain.
Link custom coins between Sui and other chains.
Contract reference: functions, roles, flow limits, events.

Resources

axelar-cgp-sui: source code of Axelar's Sui packages, with generated docs.
sui/its.js: the script Axelar uses to register, link and transfer coins on Sui.
GMP on Sui: gateway, gas service, channels and relayer discovery.

Overview