The new L1 blockchain has become popular, Hyperliquid and Sui.@Sui .
As of June 3, Hyperliquid's fully diluted valuation (FDV) shot up to $36 billion, surpassing Sui's $33.1 billion, ranking 11th and 12th respectively.
Today, let's look back at how these two 'heroes' stepped onto the peak step by step:
1. Market Entry Strategy: One 'Big Bang', One 'Slow Burn'
Hyperliquid: A stunning 'Big Bang'. Hyperliquid aimed to create a big splash from the very beginning. It targeted the establishment of a decentralized exchange (DEX) with an on-chain order book as fast as a centralized exchange (CEX), capable of clearing 100,000 orders per second, a speed that is simply lightning-fast. However, they didn't take the usual route; they didn't seek venture capital and didn't rush to mainstream exchanges, but quietly developed a great product, followed by a massive airdrop: 30% of HYPE tokens (valued at about $1.2 billion) were given directly to early users at TGE, with the remaining 70% used to continuously incentivize users.
This move was remarkable, directly causing a stir in the cryptocurrency Twitter community, with traders flocking in and a sense of community belonging rising instantly. Hyperliquid also created public leaderboards, copy trading libraries, and trading competitions, turning high-speed trading into an entertaining activity that traders enjoyed immensely.
Sui: A steady and solid 'Slow Burn'. Sui's path is much more traditional. It is backed by $336 million in venture capital, with investors being well-known names, such as A16z, Binance Labs, and Coinbase Ventures. With these 'funding partners', Sui first launched a testnet, held a hackathon, and after its mainnet went live in May 2023, it was listed on multiple exchanges.
The story of Sui emphasizes technology. It revolves around the next-generation technology of the Move language and an object-centric blockchain model, claiming to solve significant problems of throughput and security. Initially, Sui's daily active user count was not high, but by gradually expanding its developer base, promoting ecosystem incentive mechanisms, and establishing strategic partnerships, its daily active user count eventually exceeded 1 million, and the total locked value (TVL) peaked at $2 billion. By the end of 2024, the cumulative trading volume reached $44.3 billion. Sui does not rely on a single killer application but aims to establish itself as a general-purpose public chain covering various applications like DeFi, gaming, and NFTs, following a long-term strategic route.
2. Community and Culture: One 'Grassroots', One 'Elite'
Hyperliquid: A carnival for grassroots traders. The user base of Hyperliquid truly grew naturally from traders. Many early users made a fortune from the $1.6 billion airdrop. Hyperliquid refuses venture capital, positioning itself as a grassroots rebel, advocating the concept of 'win-win'. Its official communications are particularly interesting, often using CT slang, such as referring to main traders as 'liquidity thieves'. Some memecoins (like PURR, JEFF) appeared on-chain, which are internal jokes, fostering a community that prioritizes fun and actively spreads on social media. Hyperliquid’s short marketing cycles (product launches, large giveaways, immediate utility) also greatly enhance user loyalty.
Sui: An elite developer's gathering. Sui's community projects feel more systematic and corporate. It has ambassador programs, official developer funding, and widely praised meetups. The Sui Foundation places particular emphasis on attracting serious developers, stressing the importance of 'reading the white paper' rather than 'airdrop?'. While Sui also has NFT and gaming cultures, most of these activities are organized by community builders rather than the core team. Sui's philosophy emphasizes technology, security, and enterprise readiness, creating an overall atmosphere more like a developer conference than a cryptocurrency carnival.
3. Founders and Organizational Thinking: One 'Trader', One 'Architect'
Hyperliquid: A high-frequency trader obsessed with trading. Hyperliquid's co-founder Jeffrey Yan is a Harvard-educated mathematician who previously worked in high-frequency trading at Hudson River Trading. He applies the Wall Street trader's mindset to the development of Hyperliquid: performance and usability are key; if the existing L1 layer is insufficient, then build a custom chain.
Hyperliquid refuses venture capital, focuses on user incentives, and adheres to a lean, low-profile startup model: small teams, quick actions, and unique innovations, with a particular emphasis on making on-chain trading as smooth as a centralized exchange.
Sui: A perfection-seeking technology architect. Sui originates from Mysten Labs, with a team of notable figures, founded by former engineers who led the Meta Diem project. Each team member is a tech expert, like Evan Cheng and Sam Blackshear, who adopt a research-driven approach, rewriting the blockchain architecture to solve long-standing issues of speed, security, and concurrency, while also undergoing multiple rounds of financing.
Sui's leaders are less concerned with short-term hype but instead view themselves as system architects, committed to building a foundation that enables large-scale consumer adoption. They insist on releasing new consensus protocols (like Narwhal, Bullshark, Mysticeti, etc.) and continuously improving Move, believing that a broad developer ecosystem will ultimately attract mainstream use cases.
4. Token Economics and Economic Design: One 'Hyper-Deflationary', One 'Sustainable'
HYPE: The 'Magic' of Supersonic Currency. Hyperliquid's token HYPE has played out numerous tricks. By integrating activities on a single chain, it transfers protocol fees with a single token, creating multiple supply shock levers. Fee buyback and burn: part of the spot and perpetual trading fees will be used by the assistance fund to purchase and burn HYPE.
Listing auctions and fee burn (HIP-1): every 31 hours, a spot listing position will be auctioned using USDC, and this money will be used to buy and burn HYPE; bond requirements for launching (HIP-3): projects starting new perpetual markets on Hyperliquid must publish $1 million worth of HYPE as a bond and participate in a Dutch auction, which will remove tokens from circulation; validator staking: validators stake HYPE, tying security directly to the tokens; Gas Utility: network fees on HyperEVM are paid in HYPE.
These mechanisms reduce supply, increase demand, and strengthen the deflationary effect. Hyperliquid's buyback and burn mechanism also avoids regulatory and centralization issues, allowing all holders to benefit proportionally and preventing any single group from monopolizing the benefits. Moreover, it has triggered a 'follow-the-leader' effect in the market, signaling to investors that there is always a reliable buyer.
SUI: The 'Steady and Solid' Network Fuel. Sui's token economics are more traditional, aligning with its general-purpose goals.
Gas and PoS Security: SUI is used to pay transaction fees and can also protect the network through proof-of-stake, with validators and representatives earning rewards; storage fund mechanism: part of the fees goes into a storage fund to subsidize long-term storage costs; fee burn: some fees may be burned to offset inflation, somewhat like Ethereum’s EIP-1559.
Unlike Hyperliquid, Sui does not directly use protocol fees for token buybacks; income is mainly allocated to support network security and growth. Sui's on-chain data model also has supply shock mechanisms: when creating objects, users must lock some SUI to pay for storage costs, and as long as the data remains on-chain, those tokens are removed from circulation. As Walrus usage grows, more tokens are locked, creating a virtuous cycle that steadily reduces the supply of SUI.
Sui reserves a large portion of tokens for teams, investors, and communities to provide resources for development, funding, and partnerships. This means early insiders have significant influence over SUI allocation. In contrast, Hyperliquid reserves 70% of HYPE shares for users, with insiders holding relatively smaller shares. This 'populist token issuance' has won significant loyalty from the community, although some suspect insiders may indirectly claim tokens, but overall, it is more community-friendly compared to typical venture capital allocation methods.
In general, Hyperliquid treats tokens as equity, actively buying back and pursuing broad ownership; Sui views tokens as the utility engine of the network, using income to ensure network security and future development. The former focuses on hyper-deflationary value storage, while the latter concentrates on platform sustainability and growth.
5. Developer Experience and Architecture: One 'Pragmatism', One 'Full-Stack Innovation'
Hyperliquid: A 'Small Turn' of EVM Pragmatism. Hyperliquid has built a custom chain optimized for high-performance trading but did not create a new language, retaining EVM compatibility for ease of application. Developers need only make slight modifications to deploy Solidity/Vyper contracts while enjoying Hyperliquid's sub-second finality and performance exceeding 20,000 TPS. This approach retains EVM composability while providing traders with a dedicated on-chain matching engine.
Hyperliquid also adopts a full-stack solution, providing the base layer and core DEX (including features like copy trading vaults), offering developers ready-made user bases and shared liquidity. Although its ecosystem scale has not yet reached that of Ethereum or BNB Chain, it presents a low barrier for Solidity developers looking for a high-speed alternative.
Sui: A 'Big Leap' of Full-Stack Innovation. On the Sui side, it has completely broken away from the account-based paradigm. In Move, assets have become independently operable objects capable of executing transactions in parallel. Combined with the Mysticeti V2 consensus, this architecture supports thousands of concurrent transactions. Sui also provides tools like Remora (horizontal scaling), Walrus (on-chain storage), and SEAL (privacy control), offering developers functionalities that go beyond standard EVM chains.
Sui’s composability is also strong; Move packages can call each other, and the object-based model efficiently handles cross-contract interactions. Although the learning curve for Move is steep, it embeds security through strict ownership rules, reducing common exploitation avenues. Sui has also invested heavily in user-friendly features (like zkLogin, Slush), simplifying the user registration process while retaining self-custody rights. This monolithic approach, combined with programmable trading blocks (PTB), provides powerful on-chain composability.
Overall, Sui offers a more carefully curated experience: if you choose their novel stack, you can gain significant potential performance and security advantages, with a foundation investing heavily in your success. However, in a Solidity-dominated environment, this is a countercurrent choice. Sui needs to continue growing its adoption rate to prove the rationale for deviating from EVM standards.
6. Ecosystem Expansion Strategy: One 'Killer App First', One 'Platform Game'
Hyperliquid: Transforming from 'Product' to 'Platform'. Hyperliquid started as a flagship decentralized exchange (DEX), quickly capturing about 80% of the decentralized perpetual contracts (DEX) trading volume. Now, it is building a broader financial ecosystem. By sharing Hyperliquid chain's deep liquidity and fee income, Hyperliquid aims to attract complementary DeFi protocols like lending platforms, stablecoin issuers, and derivatives markets. Its roadmap is somewhat similar to Binance's evolution from an exchange to a full suite of financial products, but Hyperliquid's approach is open and community-led.
This 'product → platform' transformation is pragmatic, continuing to deeply cultivate in the financial field (its area of expertise) before gradually expanding outward. The risk is how to maintain security and decentralization as more value flows in, but Hyperliquid is currently gaining momentum. As each new application utilizes the same liquidity pools, Hyperliquid is expected to solidify a powerful on-chain financial hub.
Sui: A 'Platform Game' Blossoming in Multiple Domains. From the outset, Sui aimed to become a general-purpose public chain with a rich variety of dApps. The Sui Foundation has heavily invested in various verticals like DeFi, gaming, NFTs, and social, hoping at least one area can become the next windfall. By the end of 2024, Sui's ecosystem had already included several DEXs, lending platforms, and over twenty gaming projects, as well as established some well-known partnerships. This approach encourages wide-ranging experimentation; although user growth may be uneven, Sui has maintained developer and user engagement through strategic planning, hackathons (like 'Sui Overflow'), grants, and ambassador networks.
A key lever in Sui's ecosystem building is issuing tokens for core infrastructure projects (like DeepBook, Walrus) and directly distributing them to active Sui community members. DeepBook (a full-chain order book aggregator) airdrops tokens to stakers, DeFi participants, and DEX users, completely without relying on venture capital. Walrus allocates 10% of the token supply specifically to loyal on-chain storage users. By rewarding long-term users with new ecosystem tokens, Sui attracts them to participate more deeply in the network's flywheel, ensuring that participants can benefit from multiple projects within the ecosystem.
The gaming sector is a prominent vertical for Sui. Sui has launched the SuiPlay0X1 gaming console, aiming to bring Web3 games to mainstream players, relying on Move's complex in-game asset object model. Sui also attracts institutional players by emphasizing compliance-friendly features and major brand validators. This 'build the city first, then bring in the residents' strategy requires continuous funding and marketing. Although no application has yet become a breakout hit, many medium-sized projects' synergies have steadily pushed daily active users past one million.
7. Two Paths to the Peak: The 'Success Code' of Different Routes
The stories of Hyperliquid and Sui are truly a 'duel of champions' in the L1 track. Hyperliquid follows a vertical path, building a highly optimized trading single chain, directly rewarding users with generous incentives, significantly reducing supply through buybacks, prioritizing performance and real-time composability. Sui, on the other hand, remains patient, prioritizing infrastructure, rewriting the blockchain's state management approach, launching new technologies, and uniting numerous developers, institutions, and brands.
Each project faces its own challenges. Hyperliquid must expand beyond its flagship decentralized exchange to develop into a mature financial empire, rather than just spinning in a single product area. Sui, on the other hand, needs to convert its technical advantages into sustainable user adoption, ensuring it does not become another 'ghost chain' with strong development capabilities but limited user engagement.
Interestingly, both companies are slowly moving closer to each other's domains. Hyperliquid is beginning to add more general DeFi products, while Sui is focusing on verticals like gaming and DeFi aggregator frameworks. Ultimately, these two water-themed blockchains, both valued over $30 billion, prove that success in the cryptocurrency world can come from multiple directions, whether through community-driven speed or visionary infrastructure.
#SUI #Hyperliquid #Layer1