Recently, the Sui governance token and its ecosystem experienced a notable surge, with the SUI token rising over 75% in a week, far outperforming the market during the same period. Behind this phenomenon are complex intertwined driving factors, including speculative enthusiasm triggered by market rumors, significant changes in capital flows, and continuous improvements in the ecosystem's fundamentals.
This article by PANews delves deep into the capital flow trends of SUI in this round of rise, key information catalysts, on-chain data performance, and potential risks, aiming to comprehensively interpret the logic behind this ecosystem carnival.
Exchanges Attract Hot Money, Futures Positions Surge
Looking at the on-chain capital flow in recent months, Sui's capital changes were not significant, with a net outflow of $32 million over a three-month period, which is not a high amount. Observing the on-chain capital flow changes in the past month and week, Sui's capital flow was even more minimal, not even ranking in the top twenty among public chains.
However, the capital inflow in exchanges for the Sui ecosystem was quite noticeable. According to Coinglass data, the spot capital inflow for SUI in the past seven days reached $62.86 million, ranking fourth among all currencies, only behind USDT, ETH, and FUSD. In the futures capital inflow ranking for the past seven days, several ecosystem tokens from the Sui network such as WAL, MEMEFI, and CETUS also ranked in the top ten, further reflecting the capital activity of the Sui ecosystem.
In terms of futures positions, the SUI token's position volume began a sharp increase from April 21, growing from $700 million to $1.419 billion in just one week, approaching the previous high of $1.5 billion.
Besides SUI, most tokens in its ecosystem also saw significant increases within a week. Among the Sui ecosystem tokens listed on CoinGecko, 35 tokens rose over 100% in the past week, accounting for 20% of Sui ecosystem projects, with 37.5% of tokens rising over 50%, representing a comprehensive bloom.
From a capital perspective, this rise was a comprehensive collective uplift of the Sui ecosystem. Although most projects did not have any substantial positive developments, the price movements were quite obvious.
Multiple Positive Factors Boost Market Sentiment
On April 21, almost all mainstream tokens began to rebound synchronously, and Sui's initial rebound also started with the market rhythm, followed by several positive news. However, it's difficult to confirm whether these messages were the "engine" of Sui's surge or "smoke bombs" released to accompany the price increase.
On one hand, Sui announced multiple ecosystem cooperation messages. For instance, the Pokémon cooperation rumor: This rumor began on April 23, 2025, when the PokémonHOME app updated its privacy policy, listing "Parasol Technologies" as an authorized developer allowed to receive user data. Parasol Technologies is a blockchain game studio acquired by Mysten Labs, the core development team of Sui, in March 2025. This direct connection quickly ignited market imagination, with crypto opinion leaders and social media users speculating that Pokémon might plan to integrate its IP into the Sui blockchain. Market narratives focused on potential NFT integration or blockchain-based collectibles, possibly related to the new "Medal" feature of PokémonHOME.
Notably, the official blog post by the Sui Foundation on April 23 about Parasol launching a trading card game on Sui did not mention Pokémon. However, some users claimed that an early version of the blog mentioned PokémonNFT but was subsequently edited out, further intensifying market speculation.
Another example is the xMoney/xPortal cooperation: On April 24, Sui announced a partnership with financial platform xMoney and crypto super app xPortal. The core of this collaboration is launching a Sui-branded virtual Mastercard in Europe, integrated into the xPortal app with 2.5 million users. Users can add this virtual card to ApplePay or GooglePay and use SUI and other cryptocurrencies for payment at tens of thousands of merchants, as conveniently as using cash. The physical card is planned to be launched in late 2025.
On the other hand, the ETF narrative was also considered a key factor driving Sui's rise. Recently, information about 21Shares establishing a "SUI ETF" legal trust entity was circulated. This information is not actually new. According to Delaware company registration information, the "21SHARES SUI ETF" legal trust entity (registration number 10058451) was established on January 7, 2025, registered as a common law trust. As this information was recently exposed, it seemed to provide support for SUI's rise.
In addition, the Sui network has received several positive messages in the past one or two months. For example, the Athens Stock Exchange Group announced on April 16 that it has completed the technical design of an on-chain fundraising platform on Sui; Nautilus launched a verifiable off-chain privacy solution for Sui on April 15; Canary Capital submitted a SUI ETF application, and so on.
Overall, the recent progress Sui has made in multiple areas such as Web3 games, privacy, and development environments collectively form a positive outlook. In this regard, it differs from previous single messages that triggered a surge.
Airdrop Event Drives DEX Trading Volume Surge, Facing Dual Pressure of Token Unlocking and Application Construction
Since April, the Sui network's DEX trading volume has remained at a high level, especially reaching a historical peak of $998 million on March 29, with subsequent daily trading volumes breaking $400 million. The ecosystem's DEX leading project, Cetus Protocol, has driven the entire ecosystem's growth, with its trading volume increasing by 84.5% in the past week, and its token CETUS nearly doubling within a week.
Additionally, another important contributor is Kriya. On March 29, when Sui network's trading volume broke records, Kriya contributed $780 million, occupying a significant portion of that day's trading volume. This data grew more than 100 times compared to the previous day's $7.28 million.
Combining the perspectives, the surge in these two DEX trading volumes on March 28 may primarily be due to the trading volume spike caused by Walrus's airdrop. On March 27, the decentralized storage project Walrus, which raised $140 million, released an airdrop, and its token trading volume reached $380 million that day. This might be the main reason for the recent increase in Sui network's trading volume.
Moreover, developer activity is one of the underlying reasons for Sui network's growth. On Github, Sui network's code submissions have been frequent recently. Since December 2024, Sui network's code submission frequency has been at its peak, maintaining over 500 submissions per week, compared to around 250 previously. In contrast, Solana and Aptos maintain code submission frequencies around 100.
However, during the market's collective celebration, there are several risk points worth noting. On one hand, SUI token unlocking is a continuous selling pressure, with tens of millions of tokens being released almost weekly, making it the largest supplier in the market. These unlocked tokens are like a time bomb in SUI token's price cycle.
On the other hand, Sui ecosystem's current upward structure is mainly led by DEX or infrastructure projects, but MEME tokens or application/game projects have not yet performed outstandingly. Currently, tokens with a market value above $10 million are still mostly early-stage projects. From this perspective, if Sui were a city, it would have built shopping malls around themes like decentralized storage, DeFi, and games with projects such as Walrus, Deepbook, and Parasol. However, these malls currently lack "influencer stores" to further attract massive user participation.
Therefore, the recent surge of SUI tokens and its ecosystem is the result of market speculative enthusiasm, capital inflow, contract market expectations, and solid fundamental progress. However, while focusing on Sui's impressive price performance, one must also be cautious of the selling pressure from continuous token unlocking and pay attention to whether its application ecosystem can further prosper and give birth to breakout applications that truly attract users. This will be key to determining whether Sui can convert its current heat into long-term value.
