The year 2025 marks a tumultuous period for Sui – a layer-1 blockchain built on Move, aimed at expanding the application capabilities of Web3, DeFi, and real-world assets (RWA). Despite continuously attracting interest from major financial institutions, SUI's price reflects a tug-of-war between long-term growth momentum and short-term supply pressure.
As of the time of this writing, SUI is trading at 3.79 USD with a market capitalization of 13.3 billion USD, down 2.4% over the past week. This is a relatively modest adjustment compared to other leading altcoins, but also indicates that market confidence has not truly exploded.
Organizations are increasingly participating: Recognition is becoming more evident
One of the highlights of 2025 for the Sui ecosystem (SUI) is the increasingly clear emergence of catalysts from major financial institutions. These moves not only reinforce market confidence but also contribute to shaping the long-term development trajectory of Sui.
Mysten Labs appoints former Goldman Sachs director
Mysten Labs recently drew attention by appointing Mustafa Al Niama, former director of digital assets at Goldman Sachs, to a senior leadership position.
This is not merely a personnel decision, but also represents a strategic vision: Mustafa will play a crucial intermediary role in connecting traditional capital markets with the Sui blockchain. He focuses on developing the RWA tokenization sector based on the GENIUS Act framework, opening the potential to turn Sui into a trillion-dollar bridge between traditional finance and Web3.
21Shares launches SUI Staking ETP on SIX
Alongside this, 21Shares – a leading European cryptocurrency investment product provider – has officially listed the SUI Staking ETP on the Swiss Stock Exchange (SIX).
This is the first time institutional and individual investors in Europe can access Sui within a legally regulated framework, without needing to directly hold tokens. This product is seen as a significant step in making Sui an increasingly institutionalized asset.
Mill City Ventures invests 450 million USD
Traditional financial interest in Sui continues to be reinforced with a commitment of 450 million USD from Mill City Ventures for the SUI reserve fund. This capital not only enhances the ecosystem's liquidity but also acts as a 'trust shield', minimizing the impact of supply-demand fluctuations, while affirming a long-term investment vision for the project.
Canary Capital's SUI ETF and the anticipation from the SEC
The missing piece in this picture is the SEC's decision on Canary Capital's proposed spot SUI ETF. If approved, this product could become a powerful capital catalyst, similar to how Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs have created significant waves in the market.
However, the delays from regulatory bodies bring about delays and uncertainty. This causes many institutional investors to choose to stay on the sidelines, waiting for clearer signals before increasing their exposure to Sui.
Tokenomics pressure: When unlocks become a 'burden'
Alongside positive catalysts from institutions, tokenomics is emerging as a major challenge, creating significant pressure on market sentiment.
On August 1, 2025, approximately 44 million SUI (equivalent to 171 million USD) will be unlocked – and this is just part of the monthly distribution schedule that will last until 2030.
Currently, 3.51 billion SUI is in circulation, accounting for about 35% of the maximum total supply of 10 billion tokens. This means that 65% of the supply is still off the market and will gradually be pumped into circulation in the coming years.
Analysts warn:
If market demand is not strong enough, the selling pressure from the additional token supply could make it difficult for SUI's price to break through.
In the context of overall altcoin market liquidity having decreased by 25%, the ability to absorb new supply becomes even more challenging.
As a result, even if the Sui ecosystem continues to expand and attract institutional capital, the price accumulation process may be delayed by the burden from tokenomics.
DeFi ecosystem: Impressive growth but security risks remain present
Despite the pressure from tokenomics, Sui's DeFi ecosystem still shows remarkable development speed. To date, the total value locked (TVL) has reached 2.19 billion USD – an impressive figure for a relatively young blockchain.
Among them, BTCfi has emerged as one of the key protocols, accounting for about 10% of TVL, thanks to the integration of xBTC from the OKX exchange, opening the door for the flow of Bitcoin capital into the Sui ecosystem.
In addition to DeFi, Sui also makes its mark with many important infrastructure projects:
Walrus – a decentralized storage platform, serving as data infrastructure for Web3 applications.
Move VM 2.0 – an upgraded version of the Move virtual machine, improving both scalability and security of smart contracts.
However, rapid growth comes with concerning security vulnerabilities. The 223 million USD hack of the Cetus Protocol in May 2025 created a significant shock, leading to a wave of sell-offs across the ecosystem. This incident not only raised doubts about the centralization of the validation system on Sui but also led the community to question the actual safety of the platform.
Although the development team is committed to continuing upgrades and tightening security mechanisms, if similar incidents recur, long-term trust in Sui could be damaged, slowing the development trajectory of the ecosystem.
Technical analysis perspectives and macro factors
From a technical perspective, experts have mixed views on the price outlook of Sui (SUI).
Analyst Michaël van de Poppe believes that SUI is maintaining an important support level on a higher timeframe, which could set the stage for a breakout. He emphasizes two core drivers: the inherent strength from the rapidly growing DeFi ecosystem and the backing of Walrus Trust – a trust fund managed by Grayscale, serving as an institutional catalyst.
"SUI is in an accumulation phase for a major breakout toward a new price peak."
TVL recently set a new record at 2.25 billion USD.
DEX volume in the past month is nearly 15 billion USD.
The gap between price and TVL is becoming increasingly evident – and as resistance gradually weakens, a breakout to ATH is only a matter of time.
From another perspective, Ali Martinez believes that if the current upward momentum continues, the target of 7 USD could be achieved in the short to medium term.
"SUI continues to struggle below the 4 USD mark – The 3.17 USD level has become an important support zone to watch."
However, SUI's price outlook cannot be separated from the global macro context:
Inflation in the US remains high, causing the Federal Reserve (Fed) to not be ready to aggressively loosen monetary policy.
Bitcoin accounts for 59% of market capitalization, continuing to attract most capital flows and limiting the ability to shift to altcoins like Sui.
This indicates that, in the medium term, SUI's price movements will largely depend on whether institutional capital flows through ETP and ETF products are strong enough to offset the pressure from token unlocks. If successful, Sui could open up a new growth cycle; conversely, risks from tokenomics and the macro context could delay the breakout process.
Outlook and price scenarios for SUI
Based on the overall factors from institutional capital flows, tokenomics, ecosystem development, and the global macro context, three main scenarios can be outlined for Sui (SUI) in the short to long term:
Short-term (1–3 months)
SUI's price is likely to maintain a fluctuating state in the 3–4 USD range, reflecting the impact of periodic token unlocks and the 25% decline in altcoin liquidity.
Although the ecosystem is expanding, the continuous supply pressure makes strong short-term price breakthroughs difficult.
Short-term investors need to focus on risk management, closely monitor developments from the derivatives market, and on-chain data to identify speculative cash flows.
Medium-term (6–12 months)
If the spot SUI ETF proposed by Canary Capital is approved by the SEC, combined with the increase in capital flows from Europe through 21Shares' SUI Staking ETP, SUI's price could head toward the 5–7 USD range.
An important supporting factor is the reinforcement of institutional trust, as investment products into SUI are managed within a clear legal framework.
In a positive scenario, this capital flow could help offset much of the token unlock pressure, setting the stage for a new accumulation cycle.
Long-term (2026–2030)
In the event that Sui continues to expand its DeFi ecosystem, effectively addresses security issues following serious incidents, and successfully exploits the RWA token sector under the GENIUS framework, the project could rise to become a leading foundational blockchain. At that point, SUI's price could potentially exceed 10 USD.
On the contrary, if tokenomics is not managed properly, the enormous additional supply extending to 2030 could become a major deterrent, keeping prices suppressed in the lower range despite the ecosystem's growth.
Overall, Sui is at a strategic crossroads, possessing many advantages while facing numerous challenges.
Strengths: increasingly deep institutional capital flows, rapidly developing DeFi ecosystem, continuous expansion of infrastructure pieces like BTCfi, Walrus, and Move VM 2.0.
Challenges: unlocking 65% of the unreleased supply, security risks, and dependence on legal decisions (especially the ETF from the SEC).
Investors need to weigh long-term opportunities (Sui becoming a bridge between traditional finance and Web3) against short-term risks (new supply, uncertain macro environment). If these two factors can be balanced, Sui has the potential to become a leading foundational blockchain from 2026 to 2030, alongside major names shaping the market.