SUI

Sui

Layer 1

A very fast Move-based chain with spot ETFs and big partners, but thin fees and heavy monthly unlocks.

Strong tech, weak economics v1.2 · as of 2026-10-20 · framework v1.13 Coinsight · all analyses
Bottom line

Sui's technology and partner list keep improving: spot ETFs since February, a 40M TPS demo, Samsung Wallet and a Bitcoin-collateral launch (Hashi) this autumn. The token has not followed: −60% in a year and −81% from the January 2025 high, while DeFi TVL is down to ~$490M. Paid usage is tiny next to dilution: about $3M of network fees in 12 months versus roughly $620M of SUI newly unlocked. Until fees or buybacks grow by orders of magnitude, the monthly unlock is the main force on price.

Scorecard (1–5)
Project
Token performance
Tokenomics
Price
$1.03
+3.5% 24h · +17% 30d · CoinGecko 20 Oct
Market cap
$4.25B
rank #28 · FDV $10.3B
24h volume
$466.4M
11.0% of market cap
From ATH
−81%
ATH $5.35, Jan 2025
2026 YTD
−26%
$1.40 → $1.03
DeFi TVL
~$490M
DefiLlama, 20 Oct 2026 · ~$2.6B record in 2025

The last 12 months

$1$2$3Oct 25NovDecJan 26FebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNov2025-10-27: $2.6761$2.68 peak2026-01-06: $1.9065$1.912026-08-19: $0.6514$0.65 low2026-10-20: $1.0317$1.031Six-hour mainnet halt2First US spot SUI ETFs3Three halts in 48 hours4Daily buybacks start5Year low at $0.656Basecamp: Samsung, Hashi7Kevin Boon named Mysten CEO8Hashi mainnet rollout9USDC on Sui in Samsung Wallet10Next monthly unlock
TechMarketTokenomicsAdoptionGovernanceUpcoming

Daily closes from CoinGecko, 21 Oct 2025 to 20 Oct 2026. The 12-month high was $2.68 on 27 Oct 2025; the January 2025 ATH of $5.35 is off the chart.

Key events
  1. 1
    15 Jan 26 Six-hour mainnet halt. Validators submitted conflicting checkpoint transactions and consensus stalled; no funds were lost.
  2. 2
    18 Feb 26 First US spot SUI ETFs. Canary SUIS and Grayscale GSUI list with staking; 21Shares TSUI follows on 24 Feb.
  3. 3
    29 May 26 Three halts in 48 hours. A gas-charging bug in release v1.72 stops the chain repeatedly, each time for about six hours.
  4. 4
    22 Jun 26 Daily buybacks start. Stablecoin yield funds daily SUI purchases (~830k SUI so far); tokens go to ecosystem participants, not a burn.
  5. 5
    19 Aug 26 Year low at $0.65. −76% from the October 2025 peak, then a ~+60% September rally to ~$1.16.
  6. 6
    07 Oct 26 Basecamp: Samsung, Hashi. Samsung Wallet to offer USDC on Sui, Hashi BTC collateral announced, and a 40.6M TPS demo.
  7. 7
    16 Oct 26 Kevin Boon named Mysten CEO. Evan Cheng moves to CTO and leads a new AI unit for agent infrastructure on Sui and Walrus.
  8. 8
    ~Oct Hashi mainnet rollout. Phased launch of native BTC as DeFi collateral (hBTC), $500M+ committed, not yet deposited.
  9. 9
    ~Oct USDC on Sui in Samsung Wallet. Rollout to ~82M eligible US Galaxy devices; reach, not users.
  10. 10
    01 Nov 26 Next monthly unlock. Next scheduled tranche; trackers disagree on size (~13M to ~44M SUI).

How a stablecoin payment flows through Sui

User
Signs a transfer in a wallet

e.g. sends USDC from Samsung Wallet or a Sui app.

Wallet
Builds a transaction

Sets a gas budget in SUI; apps can sponsor gas so the user holds none.

Validators
Order and execute

Mysticeti consensus; transactions on separate objects run in parallel.

Gas
Fees charged in SUI

Computation fee goes to validators and stakers; storage fee goes into the storage fund.

Checkpoint
Final in under a second

The USDC object changes owner; the receiver sees it at once.

Receiver
Holds or swaps the USDC

Can lend it on Suilend or NAVI, or cash out on an exchange.

Where SUI comes in: every transaction pays gas in SUI, even when the user moves only USDC, and storage fees lock SUI in the storage fund until data is deleted. Sponsored gas means users can skip SUI entirely, and fees are tiny, so usage creates very little demand for the token.

Usage and adoption

USD, last 12 months (≈ Oct 2025 → Oct 2026)
Network fees (gas + storage)
~$3M
Foundation buybacks
~$0.65M
Spot ETF holdings (GSUI only)
~$40M
SUI unlocked into circulation
~$620M

Fees: $1.20M in H1 2026 (Token Terminal via CoinShares) plus an estimated ~$1.8M for Q4 2025 and Jul to Oct 2026, from a 2025 total of $8.75M and today's ~$2.9k/day (DefiLlama); treat ~$3M as a rough estimate. Buybacks: ~830k SUI (~$0.65M) since Jun 2026 (TokenPost), redistributed rather than burned. Unlocked: circulating supply rose ~550M SUI (3.57B to 4.12B), valued at the 12-month average close of ~$1.13. Fees covered about 0.5% of new supply. GSUI holdings (16 Oct) shown as a benchmark for ETF demand; storage fund inflows are included in fees.

  • weak signal
    Network fees
    $1.20M in H1 2026

    vs $8.75M in all of 2025 (Token Terminal via CoinShares); ~$2.9k on 20 Oct (DefiLlama). Paid usage is small and falling.

  • medium signal
    Stablecoin supply
    ~$530M

    DefiLlama, 20 Oct; USDC ~$341M of it. Samsung Wallet could add distribution.

  • medium signal
    DeFi TVL
    ~$490M

    DefiLlama, 20 Oct; lending (Suilend, NAVI) is ~$426M of it. Down from a ~$2.6B record in 2025.

  • medium signal
    ETF holdings
    GSUI ~$40.5M

    Grayscale, 16 Oct; 100% staked. Plus Canary SUIS and 21Shares TSUI. Small but growing.

  • weak signal
    Throughput
    40.6M TPS demo

    Basecamp, Oct 2026, programmable tunnels. Capacity, not demand.

Sui's capacity is far ahead of its demand. Fees covered well under 1% of the value unlocked over the year, and buybacks are smaller still and are recycled rather than burned. Watch fees, stablecoin supply and ETF holdings, not TPS records.

Project

What it is
A layer-1 blockchain (mainnet May 2023) built around objects and the Move language, with parallel execution and sub-second finality; Walrus storage runs alongside it.
Team
Built by Mysten Labs, founded by ex-Meta Diem engineers. Kevin Boon became CEO on 16 Oct 2026; co-founder Evan Cheng stays as CTO and leads a new AI unit. The Sui Foundation runs grants, treasury and buybacks.
Technology
Throughput is a real strength (40.6M TPS shown in a CertiK-verified demo at Basecamp, Oct 2026), but mainnet halted for about six hours in January 2026 and three times in 48 hours in late May after a v1.72 bug.
Traction
DeFi TVL ~$490M and stablecoins ~$530M (DefiLlama, 20 Oct). Network fees were $8.75M in 2025 but only $1.20M in H1 2026; daily active addresses fell from ~879k to ~268k (Token Terminal via CoinShares).
Competitors
Solana and Aptos (also Move) for fast consumer apps and DeFi; Ethereum layer-2s for stablecoins and payments.
Key risks
Dilution (59% of supply still locked); a fee base too small to offset it; repeated outages. The May 2025 Cetus hack (~$220M) ended with validators freezing $162M, which helped victims but showed the validator set can censor addresses.
Roadmap
Not yet live: Hashi mainnet (native BTC as DeFi collateral, $500M+ committed, Anchorage as partner), USDC on Sui in Samsung Wallet (82M eligible US devices, late Oct), Mysten's AI agent unit and Sui Agent Pass. The SuiPlay0X1 handheld ($599 pre-orders, 2025 target) has no confirmed 2026 shipping news.

Token performance

1-year return (21 Oct 2025 → 20 Oct 2026, CoinGecko)
SUI
-60%
BTC
-25%
ETH
-38%

SUI lost more than twice as much as BTC over 12 months. Over 3 years it is up roughly +160% (from ~$0.40 in Oct 2023), a little behind BTC (~+179%, from ~$29.7k) and ahead of ETH (~+53%, from ~$1.6k). 3-year figures are manual and approximate because the free CoinGecko API covers 365 days.

Range 2026
$0.65 low (19 Aug) to $1.91 high (6 Jan), daily closes; now $1.03
12-month drawdown
−76%, from $2.68 (27 Oct 2025) to $0.65 (19 Aug 2026)
Liquidity
$466M traded in 24h, ~11% of market cap; rank #28
Flows
+17% in 30 days after a ~+60% September; US ETFs had five straight weeks of inflows (~14M SUI)
ATH check ATH check passed. The $5.35 high (4 Jan 2025) came about 20 months after the May 2023 launch and is also the current-cycle high, so it is used as the reference.

Tokenomics

Supply
10B SUI fixed cap, all minted at genesis. ~4.12B circulating (41%); FDV $10.3B vs $4.25B market cap.
Inflation
No new minting, but staking rewards are paid partly from a pre-allocated stake-subsidy pool on a declining schedule; staking APR ~1.4–2% (Sep 2026).
Unlocks
Circulating supply rose from ~3.57B (early Oct 2025) to ~4.12B: ~550M SUI in 12 months, ~46M a month. The schedule runs to 2030.
Utility
Gas, staking for validator security, governance, and storage deposits; collateral across Sui DeFi.
Concentration
Most locked supply sits with the community reserve, early contributors, investors and the Mysten Labs treasury; their vesting sets the float.
Sinks
Storage fees lock SUI in the storage fund (partly refunded on delete). Daily buybacks since Jun 2026 (~830k SUI, ~$0.65M) are redistributed, not burned. ETFs and SUI Group hold some supply.

Bull case

Hashi brings real BTC collateral and Samsung Wallet brings stablecoin users, so fees and TVL turn up from today's lows; ETF inflows keep absorbing the ~46M SUI monthly unlock. Price holds above $0.90 and retests the $1.91 January high.

Bear case

The new launches stay announcements, fees keep shrinking, and unlocks of ~$45–50M a month at today's price overwhelm ETF and buyback demand. Price gives back the September rally and retests the $0.65 August low.

Watch before the next re-run

  • Monthly unlock size vs ETF inflows and buybacks
  • Hashi deposits live on mainnet vs the $500M committed
  • Network fees and stablecoin supply each month
  • $0.90–1.00 support and the $1.91 January high

Where to trade

Krakenlisted

SUI against EUR · USD · GBP

24h $10.2M · ±2% depth $2.98M

OKXlisted

SUI against EUR · USDT · USDC · TRY

24h $12.2M · ±2% depth $1.20M

Largest exchanges

Exchange24h vol±2% depth
BinanceSUI/USDT$37.8M$1.82M
KuCoinSUI/USDT$16.5M$335.6k
CoinbaseSUI/USD$13.6M$1.42M
GateSUI/USDT$11.8M$1.77M
OKXSUI/USDT$10.7M$1.26M

Deepest DEX pools

Pool24h vol±2% depth
CetusCLSUI/USDC · Sui$2.99M$139.6k
MomentumCLSUI/USDC · Sui$438.3k$72.6k
Turbos FinanceCLSUI/USDC · Sui$2.89M$43.8k

Pool size (TVL), fee tier and fee APR are not in yet: they need DefiLlama, which this setup cannot reach so far. CL = concentrated liquidity (higher fees, more impermanent-loss risk).

On-chain share of all SUI volume: 3.4%.

As of 21 Oct 2026 · CoinGecko tickers (24h volume, ±2% depth). ±2% depth is the money it takes to move the price 2% either way: the real size of a market. Exchanges ranked by volume among well-known venues; pools by depth. Not investment advice.

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