In-depth Analysis of the Capital Flow, Key Catalysts, On-chain Data Performance, and Potential Risks Behind the Recent Surge of SUI
（Background: Paradigm CTO states Ethereum needs a new language, Sui founder retorts: Solidity and EVM have had issues since 2018）
（Context: The world’s first “SUI ETF” submitted for SEC review, Solana futures officially listed on CME paving the way for SOL ETF approval）
Recently, the governance token of Sui and its ecosystem have experienced a remarkable surge, with the SUI token itself increasing by over 75% within a week, significantly outperforming the broader market. This phenomenon is underpinned by a complex interplay of driving factors, including speculative enthusiasm fueled by market rumors, noticeable changes in capital flow, and ongoing improvements in the ecosystem’s fundamentals. This article by PANews delves into the capital dynamics, key message catalysts, on-chain data performance, and potential risks associated with SUI’s recent surge, aiming to comprehensively interpret the logic behind this ecological carnival.
Inflow of Hot Money into Exchanges and Surge in Contract Positions
From the on-chain capital flow over the past few months, Sui’s capital changes have not been significant; within a three-month cycle, Sui experienced a net outflow of $32 million, which is not a high figure. Furthermore, upon observing the changes in on-chain capital flow over the past month and week, Sui’s capital movement has been minimal, failing to even rank within the top twenty among public chains.
However, the capital flow into exchanges indicates a noticeable influx for the Sui ecosystem. According to data from Coinglass, within the last seven days, the spot capital inflow for SUI reached $62.86 million, ranking fourth among all cryptocurrencies, only behind USDT, ETH, and FUSD. In the recent seven-day contract capital inflow ranking, several ecosystem tokens from the Sui network, including WAL, MEMEFI, and CETUS, also made it to the top ten, further reflecting the capital activity within the Sui ecosystem.
In terms of contract positions, the holding volume of SUI tokens experienced a dramatic increase starting April 21, surging from $700 million to $1.419 billion in just one week, approaching the previous high of $1.5 billion.
Besides SUI, most tokens within its ecosystem also saw significant increases within the week. Among the Sui ecosystem tokens recorded by CoinGecko, 35 tokens rose by over 100% within the past week, accounting for 20% of Sui ecosystem projects, while 37.5% of tokens saw increases of over 50%, marking a comprehensive blooming.
From a capital perspective, this surge represents a collective uplift across the Sui ecosystem; although most projects had no substantial positive developments, the price movements on the market were quite pronounced.
Multiple Positive Factors Boosting Market Sentiment
On April 21, nearly all mainstream tokens began to rebound simultaneously, and Sui’s initial rebound also started in sync with the broader market, followed by numerous positive messages. However, it is challenging to ascertain whether these messages were the “engine” driving Sui’s surge or mere “smoke screens” released in tandem with the price increase.
On one hand, several ecosystem cooperation messages emerged for Sui. For instance, there were rumors of a collaboration with Pokémon: 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 rapidly ignited market imagination, with crypto influencers and social media users speculating that Pokémon might plan to integrate its IP into the Sui blockchain. Market narratives focused on potential NFT integrations or blockchain-based collectibles, possibly even related to Pokémon HOME’s newly launched “medal” feature.
It’s worth noting that the official blog post released by the Sui Foundation on April 23 about Parasol launching a collectible card game on Sui did not mention Pokémon. However, some users claimed that an earlier version of the blog did reference PokémonNFT but was later edited out, further intensifying market speculation.
Additionally, on April 24, Sui announced a partnership with financial platform xMoney and cryptocurrency super app xPortal. The core of this partnership is to launch a Sui-branded virtual Mastercard in Europe, integrated within the xPortal application, 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 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 increase. Recently, news spread about 21Shares establishing a legal trust entity for the “SUI ETF.” This news is not new; according to Delaware company registration information, the “21SHARES SUI ETF” legal trust entity was established on January 7, 2025, under registration number 10058451, categorized as a common law trust. With this news being recently exposed, it seemingly provides support for SUI’s surge.
Moreover, the Sui network has seen several positive developments 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 an on-chain fundraising platform built on Sui; Nautilus launched verifiable off-chain privacy solutions for Sui on April 15; and Canary Capital submitted an application for the SUI ETF, among other developments.
Overall, the recent advancements Sui has achieved across multiple domains, including Web3 gaming, privacy, and development environment, have converged into a holistic positive outlook. This contrasts with the previous single-message-driven surges Sui experienced.
Airdrop Event Drives DEX Trading Volume to Soar, Facing Dual Pressure from Token Unlocking and Application Development
Since April, the DEX trading volume on the Sui network has remained at high levels, especially peaking at $998 million on March 29, followed by several days of exceeding $400 million in daily trading volume. The leading DEX project within the ecosystem, Cetus Protocol, has driven overall ecosystem growth, with its trading volume increasing by 84.5% within the week, and its CETUS token nearly doubling in value during that time.
Another significant contributor was Kriya, which contributed $780 million on the day when Sui network trading volume broke records on March 29, accounting for a substantial share of that day’s trading volume. This figure represents more than a 100-fold increase compared to the previous day’s $7.28 million.
In combination, the trading volume of these two DEXs surged on March 28, likely due to the trading volume spike caused by the airdrop from Walrus. On March 27, the decentralized storage project Walrus, which raised $140 million, released an airdrop, leading to 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 Sui’s network growth. Recently, Sui network’s code submissions on GitHub have been quite frequent, entering a peak since December 2024, maintaining a frequency of over 500 submissions per week, compared to around 250 submissions previously. In contrast, Solana and Aptos have maintained a submission frequency of about 100.
However, amidst the collective market euphoria, several risk points may warrant attention. On one hand, the unlocking of SUI tokens presents a continuous selling pressure, with millions of tokens being released almost weekly, making it the largest supplier in the market. These unlocked tokens consistently pose an unpredictable risk during the SUI token’s upward cycle.
On the other hand, the current upward structure of the Sui ecosystem is mainly led by DEX or infrastructure-type projects, while MEME tokens or application/game projects have not yet distinguished themselves. Furthermore, tokens with a market capitalization above $10 million are predominantly still early-stage projects. From this perspective, if we liken Sui to a city, it has built decentralized storage, DeFi, and gaming-themed shopping malls around projects like Walrus, Deepbook, and Parasol. However, these malls currently lack “celebrity merchants” to attract substantial users to enter.
Thus, the recent surge of SUI tokens and its ecosystem is a result of collective speculation, capital influx, expectations in the futures market, and solid fundamental progress. However, while paying attention to the Sui price’s impressive performance, it is also crucial to be aware of the selling pressure brought on by continuous token unlocking and to monitor whether its application ecosystem can further thrive, giving rise to truly attractive applications for users. This will be key to determining whether Sui can convert its current hype into long-term value.
