In-depth Analysis of the Recent Surge in SUI: Capital Trends, Key Catalysts, On-chain Data, and Potential Risks
In recent times, the governance token of Sui and its ecosystem have experienced a significant surge, with the SUI token itself rising by over 75% within a week, far surpassing the market performance during the same period. This phenomenon is driven by a complex interplay of factors, including speculative enthusiasm triggered by market rumors, significant changes in capital flows, and the continued improvement of the ecosystem’s fundamentals.
This article by PANews delves into the capital trends, key information catalysts, on-chain data performance, and potential risks behind this surge, aiming to provide a comprehensive interpretation of the logic behind this ecosystem frenzy.
Exchange Liquidity Influx, Contract Positions Soar
Looking at the on-chain capital flow in recent months, the capital change in Sui has not been significant. Over a three-month period, Sui saw a net outflow of $32 million, a relatively small amount. Furthermore, when analyzing the on-chain capital flow in the past month and week, Sui’s capital flow showed minimal change, not even ranking in the top twenty public blockchains.
However, on exchanges, the inflow of funds into the Sui ecosystem has been more prominent. According to data from Coinglass, the spot capital inflow of SUI reached $62.86 million in the past seven days, ranking fourth among all cryptocurrencies, only behind USDT, ETH, and FUSD. In the contract capital inflow rankings for the past seven days, several Sui network ecosystem tokens such as WAL, MEMEFI, and CETUS also made it into the top ten, further reflecting the active capital flow within the Sui ecosystem.
In terms of contract positions, the holding amount of SUI tokens saw a sharp increase starting from April 21, rising from $700 million to $1.419 billion in just one week, approaching its previous peak of $1.5 billion.
In addition to SUI, most tokens in its ecosystem also saw significant increases within the same week. Among the Sui ecosystem tokens listed on CoinGecko, 35 tokens saw a price increase of over 100% in the past week, accounting for 20% of Sui ecosystem projects. Meanwhile, 37.5% of tokens experienced a rise of over 50%, indicating a widespread surge.
From the perspective of capital, this surge can be seen as a collective push for the entire Sui ecosystem. Although most projects did not have substantial positive developments, the market’s price fluctuations were very evident.
Multiple Positive Catalysts Boost Market Sentiment
On April 21, nearly all major tokens began to rebound synchronously, and the initial rebound of Sui followed the broader market trend. Soon after, several positive news pieces emerged. However, it is difficult to determine whether these news items were the driving force behind Sui’s surge or were merely “smoke screens” to accompany the price rally.
On one hand, Sui released several ecosystem collaboration announcements. For example, the Pokémon collaboration rumor: This rumor originated on April 23, 2025, when Pokémon HOME updated its privacy policy to list “Parasol Technologies” as one of the authorized developers allowed to receive user data. Parasol Technologies is a blockchain game studio that was acquired by Sui’s core development team, Mysten Labs, in March 2025. This direct connection quickly ignited the imagination of the market, with crypto influencers and social media users speculating that Pokémon might integrate its IP into the Sui blockchain. Market narratives focused on potential NFT integrations or blockchain-based collectibles, and it was even suggested that this could relate to the newly launched “medal” feature in Pokémon HOME.
It is worth noting that in an official blog post released by the Sui Foundation on April 23 about Parasol launching a trading card game on Sui, no mention of Pokémon was made. However, some users claimed that the early version of the blog post had mentioned Pokémon NFTs, only for it to be edited out later, which further fueled market speculation.
Another example is the xMoney/xPortal collaboration: On April 24, Sui announced a partnership with the financial platform xMoney and the crypto super app xPortal. The core of the collaboration is the launch of a Sui-branded virtual Mastercard in Europe, integrated within the xPortal app, which has 2.5 million users. Users can add the virtual card to Apple Pay or Google Pay, enabling them to make payments with SUI and other cryptocurrencies at thousands of merchants, as easily as using cash. A physical card is planned for release later in 2025.
On the other hand, the ETF narrative is also considered a major factor driving the increase in Sui’s price. Recently, the news of 21Shares establishing a “SUI ETF” legal trust entity spread. This news is not new, as the “21SHARES SUI ETF” legal trust entity was already established on January 7, 2025, as per Delaware company registration information, under the registration number 10058451. With this news being exposed recently, it seems to have supported the rise of SUI.
In addition, several positive news pieces have emerged for the Sui network in the past month or two, such as the announcement by the Athens Stock Exchange Group on April 16 that it had completed the technical design for an on-chain fundraising platform built on Sui, and Nautilus launching a verifiable off-chain privacy solution for Sui on April 15, among others.
Overall, the recent progress of Sui in Web3 gaming, privacy, and development environments has collectively formed a positive outlook. This is in contrast to previous surges triggered by single pieces of news.
Airdrop Events Drive DEX Trading Volumes, Facing Dual Pressures from Token Unlocking and Application Development
Since April, the DEX trading volume on the Sui network has remained at a high level, particularly on March 29, when it set a historical peak of $998 million, followed by several days of breaking the $400 million daily trading volume. The leading DEX project in the ecosystem, Cetus Protocol, has driven the growth of the entire ecosystem, with its trading volume increasing by 84.5% in the past week, and its token CETUS nearly doubling within a week.
Another important contributor is Kriya, which contributed $780 million on the same day when Sui network’s trading volume set a new record on March 29, accounting for a significant portion of the daily trading volume. This figure was more than 100 times the $7.28 million from the previous day.
When combining these, the trading volume surge on March 28 seems to be primarily due to the airdrop of Walrus. On March 27, the decentralized storage project Walrus, which raised $140 million, released its airdrop, and the token’s trading volume reached $380 million on that day. This may have been the main reason for the recent increase in Sui network trading volume.
In addition, the activity of developers has also been one of the underlying reasons for the growth of the Sui network. On GitHub, the frequency of code submissions for the Sui network has been notably high. Since December 2024, the frequency of code submissions has entered a peak, consistently maintaining over 500 submissions per week, while the frequency had previously remained around 250 submissions per week. In comparison, Solana and Aptos typically maintain around 100 submissions per week.
However, amid the market-wide euphoria, several risks are worth noting. On one hand, the unlocking of SUI tokens presents a continuous selling pressure, with millions of tokens being unlocked every week, making them the largest supply source in the market. These unlocked tokens are a ticking time bomb during SUI’s price surge cycles.
On the other hand, the current surge in the Sui ecosystem is mainly led by DEX or infrastructure-related projects, while MEME tokens or application/game projects have not yet performed outstandingly. Currently, most tokens with a market cap over $10 million are still early-stage projects. From this perspective, if we compare Sui to a city, within this city, decentralized storage, DeFi, and gaming malls have been built around projects like Walrus, Deepbook, and Parasol. However, these malls currently lack some “popular stores” that could attract large-scale users to truly enter the market.
In conclusion, the recent surge in SUI tokens and its ecosystem is the result of a combination of market speculation, capital influx, and expectations in the contract market, along with solid progress in its fundamentals. However, while focusing on Sui’s impressive price performance, attention must also be paid to the selling pressure caused by token unlocking, and whether its application ecosystem can thrive further, creating truly user-attractive breakout applications. This will be key to determining whether Sui can turn its current hype into long-term value.
