Author: Frank, PANews
Recently, the Sui governance token and its ecosystem have experienced a remarkable surge, with the SUI token itself rising over 75% in just one week, far exceeding the market performance during the same period. This phenomenon is driven by a complex interplay of factors, including speculative enthusiasm sparked by market rumors, significant changes in capital flow, and continuous improvements in the ecosystem's fundamentals. This article by PANews delves into the capital dynamics behind 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 Floods Exchanges, Contract Positions Surge
From the on-chain capital flow in recent months, the changes in Sui's capital have not been significant. Over a three-month period, Sui experienced a net outflow of $32 million, which is not a high amount. However, upon further observation of the on-chain capital flow changes over the past month and week, Sui's capital movement has been minimal, failing to rank in the top twenty among public chains.
Nevertheless, the capital inflow into the Sui ecosystem on exchanges has been quite evident. According to Coinglass data, in the past seven days, the spot capital inflow for SUI reached $62.86 million, ranking fourth among all cryptocurrencies, only behind USDT, ETH, and FUSD. Additionally, several Sui network ecological tokens, such as WAL, MEMEFI, and CETUS, also made it into the top ten in the contract capital inflow rankings, further reflecting the capital activity within the Sui ecosystem.
In terms of contract position data, the holdings of SUI tokens surged dramatically starting April 21, increasing from $700 million to $1.419 billion in just one week, approaching the previous high of $1.5 billion.
Apart from SUI, most tokens in its ecosystem also saw significant increases within the week. Among the Sui ecosystem tokens listed on CoinGecko, 35 tokens experienced price increases of over 100% in the past week, accounting for 20% of Sui ecosystem projects, while 37.5% of tokens saw price increases exceeding 50%, indicating a widespread rally.
From a capital perspective, this rise represents a collective boost for the Sui ecosystem. Although most projects did not have any substantial positive developments, the price fluctuations in the market were quite pronounced.
Multiple Positive Factors Boost Market Sentiment
On April 21, almost all mainstream tokens began to rebound simultaneously, and Sui's initial rebound also started in sync with the broader market, followed by numerous positive news releases. However, it is difficult to confirm whether these news items were the "engine" behind Sui's surge or merely "smoke screens" to accompany the price increase.
On one hand, multiple ecological collaboration news has emerged for Sui. For instance, the Pokémon collaboration rumor: This rumor began on April 23, 2025, when the Pokémon HOME application updated its privacy policy to list "Parasol Technologies" as one of the authorized developers allowed to receive user data. Parasol Technologies is a blockchain gaming studio that was acquired by Sui's core development team, Mysten Labs, in March 2025. This direct connection quickly ignited the market's imagination, with crypto opinion leaders and social media users speculating that Pokémon might plan to integrate its IP into the Sui blockchain. The market narrative focused on potential NFT integration or blockchain-based collectibles, possibly related to Pokémon HOME's newly launched "medal" feature.
It is worth noting that the official blog post released by the Sui Foundation on April 23 regarding Parasol's launch of a collectible card game on Sui did not mention Pokémon. However, some users claimed that an earlier version of the blog had referenced Pokémon NFTs, which was later edited out, further fueling 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 this 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 this virtual card to Apple Pay or Google Pay, allowing them to use SUI and other cryptocurrencies for payments at tens of thousands of merchants, as conveniently as using cash. A 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 Sui's rise. Recently, news spread about 21Shares establishing a "SUI ETF" statutory trust entity. This news is not new; according to Delaware company registration information, the "21SHARES SUI ETF" statutory trust entity was established on January 7, 2025, with registration number 10058451, classified as a general statutory trust. The recent exposure of this news seems to have provided support for SUI's rise.
In addition, there have been several positive developments for the Sui network in the past month or two, such as the Athens Stock Exchange Group announcing on April 16 that it had completed the technical design for building an on-chain fundraising platform on Sui; Nautilus launching a verifiable off-chain privacy solution for Sui on April 15; and Canary Capital submitting an application for a SUI ETF, among others.
Overall, Sui has recently made progress in various fields such as Web3 gaming, privacy, and development environments, which collectively form a positive outlook. This differs from previous instances where a single piece of news triggered a surge.
Airdrop Events Drive DEX Trading Volume Surge, Facing Dual Pressure of Token Unlocking and Application Development
Since April, the DEX trading volume on the Sui network has remained at a high level, especially peaking at $998 million on March 29, followed by several days of daily trading volume exceeding $400 million. The leading DEX project within the ecosystem, Cetus Protocol, has driven growth across the entire ecosystem, with its trading volume increasing by 84.5% in the past week, and the CETUS token nearly doubling in value within the same timeframe.
Additionally, another significant contributor is Kriya, which contributed $780 million on the day Sui's trading volume broke records on March 29, capturing a substantial share of that day's trading volume. This figure represents a more than 100-fold increase compared to the previous day's $7.28 million.
When looking at the data, the trading volume of these two DEXs surged on March 28, likely due to the airdrop from Walrus. On March 27, the decentralized storage project Walrus, which raised $140 million, announced an airdrop, resulting in a trading volume of $380 million for that token on the same day. This may have been a primary reason for the recent increase in trading volume on the Sui network.
Moreover, the activity of developers is also one of the underlying reasons for the growth of the Sui network. On GitHub, the frequency of code submissions for the Sui network has recently increased significantly. Since December 2024, the frequency of code submissions has peaked, maintaining over 500 submissions per week, compared to around 250 submissions previously. In contrast, the code submission frequency for Solana and Aptos has remained around 100.
However, amidst the collective market euphoria, there are several risk points worth noting. On one hand, the unlocking of SUI tokens presents a continuous selling pressure, with tens of millions of tokens being released almost every week, making it the largest supplier in the market. These unlocked tokens remain an unpredictable time bomb during the SUI token's upward cycle.
On the other hand, the current upward structure of the Sui ecosystem is primarily led by DEX or infrastructure projects, while MEME tokens or application/game projects have not yet stood out. Additionally, tokens with a market capitalization above $10 million are mostly still early-stage projects. From this perspective, if we compare Sui to a city, it has built decentralized storage, DeFi, and gaming-themed malls around projects like Walrus, Deepbook, and Parasol. However, these malls currently lack some "popular merchants" to further attract large-scale users to truly enter the market.
In conclusion, the recent surge of the SUI token and its ecosystem is the result of market speculative enthusiasm, capital inflow, and contract market expectations, combined with solid fundamental progress. However, while paying attention to Sui's impressive price performance, one must also be wary of the selling pressure from continuous token unlocking and monitor whether its application ecosystem can further thrive and produce truly attractive applications for users. This will be key to determining whether Sui can convert its current popularity into long-term value.
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