The Surge of the Sui Ecosystem: A Frenzy Driven by Multiple Factors

Recently, the Sui ecosystem has experienced a remarkable surge, with its governance token rising over 75% in a week, far exceeding the market performance during the same period. Behind this phenomenon are complex driving factors intertwined, including speculative enthusiasm triggered by market rumors, significant changes in capital flows, and continuous improvements in the ecosystem's fundamentals. Let us delve into the funding trends of this round of increase, key news catalysts, on-chain data performance, and potential risks, to comprehensively interpret the logic behind this ecological carnival.

Influx of Hot Money into Exchanges, Surge in Contract Positions

From the on-chain fund flow in recent months, the change in Sui's funds is not significant, showing a net outflow of 32 million USD over a three-month period, which is not a high amount. The changes in on-chain fund flow over the past month and the past week are even more negligible, and it did not even rank in the top twenty among public chains.

However, the capital flow of the exchange shows a significant influx of funds into the Sui ecosystem. Data shows that in the past seven days, the spot capital inflow for SUI reached 62.86 million USD, ranking fourth among all cryptocurrencies. In the contract capital inflow rankings, several ecological tokens from the Sui network, such as WAL, MEMEFI, and CETUS, also made it into the top ten, reflecting the active capital dynamics of the Sui ecosystem.

The contract holdings of the SUI token experienced a surge starting from April 21, rising from 700 million to 1.419 billion in just one week, close to the previous high of 1.5 billion. In addition to SUI, most tokens in its ecosystem also saw significant increases within the week, with 20% of the tokens rising over 100% and 37.5% of the tokens rising over 50%, showing a flourishing trend.

Multiple positive factors boost market sentiment

On April 21, mainstream tokens began to sync and rebound, and Sui's rebound also started in line with the overall market rhythm, followed by several positive news releases. These messages include:

1. Pokémon collaboration rumors: Originating from the Pokémon HOME app's updated privacy policy, which lists Sui-related companies as authorized developers.

2. xMoney/xPortal Collaboration: Announced the launch of the Sui-branded virtual Mastercard in Europe, integrated within the xPortal app, which has 2.5 million users.

3. ETF-related news: 21Shares established the "SUI ETF" statutory trust entity as early as January 2025, and it has recently been re-exposed.

In addition, the Sui network has also made several advances such as the construction of an on-chain fundraising platform by the Athens Stock Exchange Group and the launch of verifiable off-chain privacy solutions by Nautilus. These developments span multiple areas including Web3 gaming, privacy, and development environments, creating an overall favorable outlook.

Surge in DEX Trading Volume and Developer Activity

Since April, the DEX trading volume on the Sui network has remained at a high level, reaching a historical peak of $998 million on March 29. The leading DEX project within the ecosystem, Cetus Protocol, has driven the growth of the entire ecosystem, with its trading volume increasing by 84.5% in the past week. Another important contributor, Kriya, contributed $780 million in trading volume on March 29.

The surge in trading volume of these DEXs may be related to the airdrop of Walrus. On March 27, the decentralized storage project Walrus released an airdrop, and on that day, the trading volume of the token reached $380 million.

Developer activity is one of the underlying reasons for the growth of the Sui network. Starting from December 2024, the frequency of code submissions on Sui's GitHub reached a peak, maintaining over 500 submissions per week, far surpassing that of Solana and Aptos.

Potential Risks and Future Challenges

Despite the high market sentiment, several potential risks still need to be noted:

1. The selling pressure brought by the continuous unlocking of SUI tokens.

2. The lack of blockbuster applications and "internet celebrity merchants" in the ecosystem may limit large-scale user entry.

3. The current upward structure is mainly led by DEX or infrastructure projects, while application/game projects have not yet stood out.

Overall, the recent surge of the SUI token and its ecosystem is the result of the market's speculative enthusiasm, influx of funds, expectations in the derivatives market, and fundamental progress. However, whether Sui can convert the current hype into long-term value depends on whether its application ecosystem can further flourish and create truly appealing blockbuster applications that attract users.