Analysis of Multiple Factors Behind the Recent Surge of the Sui Ecosystem

Recently, the Sui ecosystem has experienced a remarkable surge, with its governance token SUI increasing by over 75% in a week, far exceeding the market performance during the same period. Behind this phenomenon is a complex interplay of driving factors, including speculative enthusiasm triggered by market rumors, significant changes in capital flow, and continuous improvements in the ecosystem's fundamentals. This article delves into the capital dynamics of SUI's recent rise, key news catalysts, on-chain data performance, and potential risks, aiming to provide a comprehensive interpretation of the logic behind this ecological frenzy.

Hot money flows into the exchange, contract positions surge

From the on-chain capital flows in recent months, Sui's capital changes are not significant, showing a net outflow of 32 million dollars over a three-month period, which is not a high amount. In the on-chain capital flow changes over the past month and week, Sui's capital flow has changed even less, failing to rank in the top twenty among public chains.

However, in terms of capital flow on the exchange, the inflow of funds into the Sui ecosystem is quite noticeable. Data shows that in the past seven days, the spot capital inflow of SUI reached 62.86 million USD, ranking fourth among all cryptocurrencies, following USDT, ETH, and FUSD. In the capital inflow ranking for contracts over the past seven days, several Sui network ecological tokens such as WAL, MEMEFI, and CETUS have also made it into the top ten, reflecting the capital activity in the Sui ecosystem.

In terms of contract position data, the holding volume of SUI tokens experienced a surge starting from April 21, skyrocketing from $700 million to $1.419 billion in just one week. This figure is already close to the previous high of $1.5 billion.

Apart from SUI, most tokens in its ecosystem have also seen significant increases within a week. Among the recorded Sui ecosystem tokens, 35 tokens have increased by over 100% in the past week, accounting for 20% of Sui ecosystem projects, and 37.5% of the tokens have increased by over 50%, which can be described as blooming everywhere.

From a financial perspective, this surge is a comprehensive collective rise of the Sui ecosystem. Although most projects have not seen any actual positive developments, the price fluctuations on the market are very evident.

Multiple Positive Factors Boost Market Sentiment

On April 21, almost all mainstream tokens began to rebound in sync, and Sui's initial rebound also started in line with the overall market's momentum, followed by a number of positive news releases. However, it is difficult to confirm whether this news is the "engine" behind Sui's surge or just a "smokescreen" released to coordinate with the price increase.

On one hand, Sui has released multiple ecological cooperation news. For example, the Pokémon collaboration rumor: this rumor began on April 23, 2025, when the Pokémon HOME app updated its privacy policy, listing "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 in March 2025. This direct connection quickly ignited the market's imagination, and crypto opinion leaders and social media users speculated that Pokémon might be planning to integrate its IP into the Sui blockchain.

It is worth noting that the official blog post released by the Sui Foundation on April 23 regarding the launch of the collectible card game Parasol on Sui did not mention Pokémon. However, some users claim that an earlier version of the blog referenced PokémonNFT but was subsequently edited out, further fueling market speculation.

For example, the collaboration between xMoney/xPortal: On April 24, Sui announced a partnership with the financial platform xMoney and the crypto super app xPortal. The core of this collaboration is to launch a Sui-branded virtual Mastercard in Europe, which will be integrated into the xPortal app that has 2.5 million users. Users can add this virtual card to Apple Pay or Google Pay and use SUI and other cryptocurrencies for payments at tens of thousands of merchants, just as conveniently as using cash. The physical card is planned to be launched later in 2025.

On the other hand, the ETF narrative is also considered one of the important factors driving the rise of Sui. Recently, news has circulated about an asset management company establishing a "SUI ETF" legal trust entity. This news is actually not new; according to Delaware company registration information, the "SUI ETF" legal trust entity with registration number 10058451 was established on January 7, 2025, and is registered as a common law trust. With this news being exposed recently, it seems to also provide support for the rise of SUI.

In addition, there have been many positive news reports about the Sui network in the past month or two. For instance, the Athens Stock Exchange Group announced on April 16 that it has completed the technical design for building an on-chain fundraising platform on Sui; Nautilus launched a verifiable off-chain privacy solution for Sui on April 15; and a certain capital has submitted an application for a SUI ETF, among other things.

Overall, the recent progress made by Sui in multiple areas such as Web3 gaming, privacy, and development environments has come together to form a comprehensive positive outlook. In this regard, it differs from the previous explosive reactions triggered by single news from Sui.

Airdrop events drive a surge in DEX trading volume, facing dual pressures from token unlocks and application development.

Since April, the DEX trading volume on the Sui network has remained at a high level, especially reaching a historical peak of $998 million on March 29, followed by several days of exceeding $400 million in daily trading volume. The leading DEX projects within the ecosystem have driven the growth of the entire ecosystem, with their trading volume increasing by 84.5% in the past week, and the tokens have also nearly doubled in a week.

In addition, another important contributor is Kriya, which contributed $780 million on March 29, the day Sui network's trading volume broke records, accounting for a significant share of the day's trading volume. This figure represents an increase of over 100 times compared to the $7.28 million of the previous day.

Overall, the trading volume of these two DEXs surged on March 28, likely due to the airdrop of Walrus causing a spike in trading volume. On March 27, the decentralized storage project Walrus, which raised $140 million, announced an airdrop, and the trading volume of the token reached $380 million that day. This may have been the main reason for the recent increase in trading volume on the Sui network.

In addition, the activity of developers is one of the underlying reasons for the growth of the Sui network. Recently, the code submissions for the Sui network on Github have also been quite frequent. Since December 2024, the frequency of code submissions for the Sui network has peaked, maintaining at over 500 times per week, while the previous figure was around 250 times. In comparison, the code submission frequency for other public chains has generally remained around 100.

However, during the collective celebration in the market, there are also several risk points that may be worth noting. On one hand, the unlocking of SUI tokens is a continuous selling pressure, with tens of millions of tokens released almost every week, making it the largest supplier in the market. These unlocked tokens always pose a ticking time bomb in the rising cycle of SUI tokens.

On the other hand, the upward structure of the Sui ecosystem is currently mainly led by Dex or infrastructure-type projects, but the performance of MEME tokens or application/game projects has not yet been outstanding. At the same time, tokens with a market capitalization of over 10 million are basically still early-stage projects. From this perspective, if we compare Sui to a city, decentralized storage, DeFi, and gaming-themed malls have been built around projects such as Walrus, Deepbook, and Parasol. However, these malls currently lack some "internet celebrity merchants" to further attract large-scale users to truly enter the scene.

From this perspective, the recent surge of the SUI token and its ecosystem is the result of the market's speculative enthusiasm, capital inflow, expectations from the contract market, and solid fundamental progress working together. However, while paying attention to the remarkable performance of Sui's price, it is also necessary to be wary of the selling pressure brought by the continuous unlocking of tokens and to monitor whether its application ecosystem can further thrive and produce truly attractive blockbuster applications for users. This will be key in determining whether Sui can convert its current popularity into long-term value.