I’d like to share an interesting trading mechanism with everyone—a mechanism I recently came across while researching how SUI and other new tokens are launched. Many people may still be unfamiliar with the concept of call auction, but in fact it’s quite common in traditional stock trading, and it has also been introduced into the cryptocurrency market.

In simple terms, a call auction collects all buy and sell orders within a certain period, and then determines the execution price based on specific rules. Imagine everyone in the market bringing what they have to exchange, and then the exchange decides the exchange price based on certain rules. In this process, one side is the SUI token, and the other side is USDT—like bartering.

The priority rules for this mechanism are as follows: it follows the principle of price priority and time priority. Orders with lower prices are matched first; if the prices are the same, it goes to the order placed earlier. It feels a bit like an order book, but it’s not exactly the same. The principle for determining the transaction price is to allow the largest number of people to exchange assets—somewhat like an auction where everyone makes bids, and the final price is selected to satisfy most participants.

Here’s an example to help you understand how this call auction works in practice. Suppose the opening reference price is the price at 19:50, and during the bidding period, A submits 4 SUI with a limit price of 1 USDT. B also submits 4 SUI with a limit price of 0.99. At this time, C submits a sell order for 8 SUI with a limit price of 1.01 because they need funds to participate in a certain IEO project. D submits a sell order for 4 SUI with a limit price of 1 yuan. In the end, the maximum matching quantity occurs at the 1 SUI / 1 USDT price, so the SUI opening price is set at 1 yuan.

So why adopt this call auction method? There are several main benefits. First is fairness: all investors trade at the same price, avoiding the impact of any individual investor’s trading behavior on the market price. Second is improved liquidity: by aggregating buy and sell orders over a period of time, investors can more easily find counterparties, and trading costs are also reduced. Another benefit is that it can reduce price volatility at the open, making the market more stable. Investors may hesitate at the opening because they worry about price swings, but with this call auction approach, everyone can participate with more confidence. Finally, the opening price reflects all investors’ collective view of the coin price, allowing market information to be better reflected in the opening price.

Considering that the current cost to mine SUI using BNB has already exceeded 1 yuan, what do you think the opening price should be now? This is definitely worth thinking about—feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.