Why SUI Is Gaining Momentum Among
Smart Crypto Investors? (Long Version)

Project Overview

Technical Innovation

Sui leverages innovative blockchain technology with its object-centric data model, high throughput capabilities, and efficient gas economy to provide a scalable, low-latency platform. Its design enables parallel transaction execution, cross-chain interoperability, and a flexible fee structure, positioning it as a highly efficient solution for Web3 applications.

• Object-Centric Data Model: Sui introduces an object-centric data model that treats each asset as a programmable object, enabling a major leap in scalability. Unlike Ethereum’s account-based model, this design allows for parallel execution of independent transactions. Transactions are grouped by the objects they interact with, allowing validators to process them simultaneously on separate machines—as long as they're not interdependent. This parallelization not only boosts efficiency but also enables the network to scale linearly as validators add more machines to their nodes, all without compromising security.

• Low Latency, High Throughput: Sui processes up to 300,000 simple transactions per second by skipping consensus for basic actions and validating transactions individually instead of batching them into blocks. Its object-based model enables parallel execution across validator machines, drastically reducing latency. By offloading much of the communication to client-side gateways—similar to how MetaMask interacts with Ethereum—Sui boosts efficiency without increasing trust assumptions.

• Interoperability and Bridging: Sui is rapidly expanding its cross-chain footprint with integrations through Wormhole and LayerZero, allowing assets and data to flow between major blockchains, enhancing its role in the broader Web3 economy.

• No Consensus for Simple Transactions: On Sui, simple transactions like peer-to-peer transfers and NFT mass mints do not undergo consensus, allowing validators to process ~300,000 transfers/simple transactions per second.

• Efficient and Flexible Gas Economy: Sui’s gas fees consist of computation and storage components, with users paying a base “reference price” plus optional tips to prioritize transactions. Despite high throughput, Sui maintained low costs, with average fees dropping to $0.0069 per transaction in Q4—millions of which are viable daily. A unique feature is sponsored transactions, allowing dApps to cover fees for users; around 6.3% of Q4 transactions were sponsored. Storage fees fund a decentralized storage model, enabling data persistence even as validator sets change, and can be refunded if users delete stored data. These storage fees, which are never paid to validators, create a temporary deflationary effect on SUI by locking tokens until redistributed.

Rising Institutional Confidence

Sui has rapidly gained traction among major institutional players, signaling strong market confidence in its long-term potential. Canary Capital Group filed with the U.S. SEC to launch a spot SUI ETF, while investment giants like Franklin Templeton, Grayscale, and VanEck have already integrated Sui into their financial products. In a notable show of backing, Mysten Labs raised $300 million in a Series B round led by FTX Ventures (prior to its collapse), with support from a16z, Jump Crypto, Binance Labs, and Circle Ventures. Despite broader market volatility, Sui’s momentum has remained steady, underlining the strength of investor conviction.

Institutional interest continued to deepen throughout Q4 2024. On November 7, VanEck launched the VanEck Sui ETN, a fully collateralized product offering regulated exposure to SUI for millions of institutional investors. Later that month, Sui partnered with Franklin Templeton Digital Assets to accelerate ecosystem growth and innovation. On December 3, Republic announced the development of the Sui Launchpad—a platform to help companies create utility tokens—with DeLorean Labs onboard to issue the first token, DMC. These developments reflect Sui’s growing appeal as a foundational layer for serious institutional and enterprise-grade blockchain applications.

Strategic Partnerships

Sui has formed high-profile partnerships across industries, including becoming the official blockchain partner of ONE Championship to enhance fan engagement and signing a multiyear deal with Oracle Red Bull Racing to build immersive digital experiences. It is also collaborating with Ant Digital to tokenize real-world ESG assets, highlighting its push into sustainable finance.

These strategic moves, alongside key milestones like the launch of native USDC on Sui, the VanEck Sui ETN, integration with Phantom, and a partnership with Franklin Templeton Digital Assets, fueled a 153.6% QoQ surge in SUI’s circulating market cap to $12.22 billion—nearly triple the growth of the broader crypto market. By the end of Q4 2024, Sui had risen six spots to become the 15th largest cryptocurrency by market cap, hitting an all-time high of $4.93 on December 16. Over the past year, SUI’s price soared 428.2%, with its circulating market cap skyrocketing 1,410.1%.

In April 2025, Sui expanded its reach into real-world payments through a partnership with xMoney and xPortal, bringing a custom Sui wallet experience and a virtual Mastercard to millions of users across Europe. This collaboration enables a seamless crypto-to-payment functionality, with plans for global expansion and the release of a physical Mastercard later this year, further solidifying Sui’s role in bridging crypto with everyday spending.

Diverse Use Cases

Sui’s architecture is purpose-built to support a wide range of diverse use cases, making it an attractive foundation for developers building across industries. Its high throughput, low latency, and object-centric model enable seamless execution for applications in DeFi, gaming, NFTs, and real-world asset tokenization. This versatility has allowed Sui to foster a fast-growing and dynamic ecosystem, where projects can innovate without being constrained by typical Layer 1 limitations.

​​DeFi

As the Sui ecosystem matures, Q1 2025 data offers a revealing snapshot of how liquidity and trading dynamics are shifting across its top DEXes and aggregators. By analyzing changes in Total Value Locked (TVL) and trading volumes from Q4 to Q1, we can see which platforms are leading, growing, or facing challenges within the network.

• Cetus saw a -31.82% drop in TVL and -13.45% drop in volume, but still remains the top DEX by volume and TVL.

• Bluefin AMM experienced strong growth: +262.64% in volume, despite a -32.93% drop in TVL.

• Aftermath had a huge TVL drop (-65.13%) but volume grew 42.83%, showing more usage with lower locked capital.

• DeepBook stayed stable in TVL (+0.95%) and had modest volume growth of 23.17%.

• Turbos declined in both: TVL fell -49.39%, and volume dropped -45.95%.

• FlowX saw significant declines: TVL down -61.89% and volume down -35.39%.

• Navi saw massive volume growth: +185.40%, reaching $377M (fastest-growing aggregator).

• Navi is also the largest lending platform by TVL at $425M, with $120M borrowed.

• Suilend close behind in activity: $369M TVL, $103M borrowed.

Gaming

In Q4 2024, Sui advanced in consumer apps, especially gaming, NFTs, and RWAs. It launched the SuiPlay0X1 handheld with titles like Samurai Shodown R and Panzerdogs, and introduced interactive games like Gamisodes (featuring Inspector Gadget) and Warped Universe with tradable assets. MemeFi, with 28M users, launched its MEMEFI token on Sui, while E4C: Final Salvation by Ambrus Studio integrated Dynamic NFTs and zkLogin for global expansion.

NFTs

Since launch, Sui's NFT trading volume grew 13.5% to 15.1M SUI, driven by marketplaces like Clutchy and TradePort, and collections like Fuddies and SuiFrens: Bullsharks. In sports and esports, Sui partnered with MLS for MLS QUEST, launched dynamic tennis collectibles with the ATP, and Team Liquid introduced MyBlue, a fan platform with zkLogin and sponsored transactions.

Ecosystem Growth

Sui’s ecosystem has surpassed $2 billion in TVL, doubling in just three months, driven by a thriving DeFi landscape and key infrastructure partnerships with Alibaba Cloud and Qredo. Average daily DEX volume soared 444.8% QoQ and 1,591.1% YoY to $265.5 million, with Cetus capturing 75.6% of all volume. In Q4 2024, projects like Scallop, Arttoo, Wave, and Ambrus Studio raised a combined $10 million. New features like sponsored transactions, zkLogin, Sui Bridge, and Sui Kiosk are enhancing user onboarding and experience, with the Sui Foundation and Mysten Labs leading the network’s continued development.

In summary, Sui’s innovative technology, institutional support, strategic alliances, and rapid ecosystem development position it as a strong contender in the Layer 1 blockchain space.