This week, as SUI tokens were unlocked and the cross-chain bridge went live on the mainnet, combined with the hype surrounding popular memes, SUI led a new wave of price increases, pushing its market cap to Rank 20th.
Overview
SUI is a permissionless, PoS-based Layer 1 blockchain developed by Mysten Labs. It aims to provide instant settlement and high throughput, supporting next-generation decentralized applications that require low latency. The project was founded by the former team behind Facebook’s Libra/Diem project and has garnered significant attention and investment from the capital market.
Market Performance
According to 2024 market data, SUI has performed outstandingly, as shown below:
- Market Cap Growth: Since Q4 2023, SUI has shown strong performance, with a quarter-over-quarter growth of 120%, followed by an additional 176% increase in Q1 2024.
- Price Trends: SUI exhibited volatility throughout 2024 but maintained an overall upward trend. On March 27, 2024, SUI reached an all-time high of $2.18. As of October 1, 2024, SUI’s price has risen again, standing at around $1.92 at the time of writing.
- Current Price: $1.92 (as of October 3, 2024)
- All-time High: $2.18 (March 27, 2024)
- Price Increase: Over 100% in the past three months
Sui Ecosystem Projects and Recent Upgrades
Ecosystem Project Development
Since Sui’s mainnet launch, its ecosystem has rapidly expanded, attracting numerous developers and enterprises. Several projects are now live on the Sui blockchain:
DeFi Projects: DeFiLlama reports that four protocols within the ecosystem now have over $100 million in TVL:
Decentralized Exchanges (DEX)
- Cetus: With a TVL of $180 million, Cetus occupies a significant market share within the SUI ecosystem. As a high-efficiency decentralized exchange, Cetus offers a user-friendly trading experience with a wide range of token swap options and allows users to participate in liquidity pools for potential fee income.
- DeepBook: Sui’s first order book DEX, which provides a decentralized liquidity layer for Sui. Built by MovEX and the Sui Foundation, DeepBook has been integrated into Sui’s official framework.
Lending Protocols
- Navi: As the largest lending platform in the SUI ecosystem, Navi manages assets worth up to $410 million. This protocol allows users to collateralize assets and borrow other assets, offering flexible funding options to support various financial strategies.
- Scallop: Another significant lending protocol in the SUI ecosystem, Scallop manages $170 million in assets, providing further financial diversity and stability.
- Suilend: The Suilend protocol marks Solend’s first venture outside the Solana ecosystem. By launching on Sui, Solend leverages the inherent security features integrated into the Move language, providing built-in protection for its smart contracts.
Wallet Solutions
- OKX Wallet: A comprehensive digital asset management tool, OKX Wallet supports multi-chain functionality, including seamless integration with the SUI network.
- Sui Wallet: One of the most widely used wallets within the SUI ecosystem, known for its robust functionality and user-friendly interface.
- Suiet: A self-custody wallet built on the Sui blockchain, with all content open-sourced.
Gaming Projects:
- SuiPlay0x1: A lightweight handheld gaming device with native Web3 functionality, which has begun pre-sales and is expected to launch globally in 2025.
- DARKTIMES: A battle royale game built on Sui by Animoca’s VIP gaming studio, Blowfish Studios. DARKTIMES utilizes Web3 technology to host digital assets on Sui, including the $TIMES token, Genesis NFTs, and various in-game cosmetic items.
Meme Tokens
Sui’s meme token movement has taken inspiration from many successful meme projects on Solana, creating a sense of familiarity.
It’s worth noting that Sui’s meme tokens are still in the early stages. However, with the recent price surge in SUI, meme projects on Sui have gained momentum and vitality.
Below is the data from Coingecko for reference.
$Hippo: The River Hippo
Market Cap: $128,555,689
Project Intro: Recently gained widespread attention after surpassing a $100 million market cap. The website states that a portion of profits will be donated to wildlife protection organizations worldwide.
Twitter: https://x.com/blubsui
Telegram: https://t.me/HIPPO_SUI
$BLUB: The Water Pepe
Current Market Cap: $50,518,551
Twitter: https://x.com/blubsui
Telegram: https://t.me/blubsui
Project Intro: $BLUB was launched in late June 2024. Its design is reminiscent of Pepe but as “the water Pepe,” combining elements of Pepe and Sui’s water droplet imagery. While $BLUB’s performance has been slightly weaker than $Hippo in terms of market movement, it remains a notable player.
$FUD: The Water Dog
Current Market Cap: $36,209,263
Twitter: https://x.com/fudthepug
Telegram Bot: https://t.me/FUDSuiBot
Project Intro: $FUD was airdropped to the Sui NFT community in December 2023. Interestingly, $FUD has no team or pre-sale allocations. As an early entrant, $FUD has a more established community and ecosystem. It launched a Telegram bot on October 3rd, enabling fast transactions and has integrated with several Sui DeFi and GameFi projects.
Team Members
Mysten Labs is a research and development company founded by former executives and chief architects of Meta’s Novi Research and the Diem blockchain, as well as the Move programming language.
- Evan Cheng: Co-founder and CEO of SUI, former Director of Engineering at Facebook, responsible for Novi research.
- Sam Blackshear: Lead Engineer, the primary designer of the Move programming language.
- George Danezis: Chief Scientist, PhD from Cambridge, professor at UCL, with extensive experience in blockchain and privacy technologies.
- Avery Ching: Chief Technology Officer, former senior engineer at Facebook.
The team has strong ties to Meta (Facebook), and while Meta’s Diem (formerly Libra) project failed, there are speculations that Meta may try to re-enter the crypto space through former team members involved in Aptos and Sui, though this remains to be seen.
Tokenomics
Total Supply: 10 billion SUI tokens
Distribution:
- Allocations beyond 2023: 52.2% (5.22 billion tokens)
- Community Reserve: 10.6% (1.06 billion tokens)
- Staking Subsidies: 9.5% (949.4 million tokens)
- Series A Investors: 7.1% (714.1 million tokens)
- Series B Investors: 7% (695.5 million tokens)
- Early Contributors: 6.1% (613.3 million tokens)
- Community Access Program: 5.8% (582 million tokens)
- Mysten Labs Treasury: 1.6% (163.4 million tokens)
Unlock Plan
Approximately 52.2% of tokens will be unlocked after 2030 to ensure long-term project funding and development support. Periodic token unlocks may cause market fluctuations, so investors should closely monitor announcements and economic activity.
Economic Model
SUI’s economic model is designed to maintain network activity and growth through adequate staking rewards and community incentives, while driving token utility through smart contracts and decentralized applications.
- Inflation and Supply Dynamics: SUI’s model balances inflation with scarcity, providing flexibility for early development and supporting long-term value.
- Staking Mechanism: SUI’s model emphasizes decentralization and community participation through staking.
It is worth noting that the founder of CyberCapital pointed out that in Sui’s public tokenomics, locked tokens are held by third-party custodians. The 2030 unlock of “unallocated” supply is only a promise with no supporting evidence. We must trust the foundation, which has given itself every legal exit, as custodians typically do not enforce the lock!
Key Points of 2024
In 2024, SUI underwent several key upgrades, further enhancing its network performance and functionality:
- Network Iteration Updates: SUI’s network underwent two important updates in September, and the Sui mainnet has been upgraded to version V1.34.2, while the protocol has been upgraded to version 60.
2. New Platforms and Tools:
- Hydropower Program: An eight-week virtual accelerator program providing hands-on workshops and expert guidance to technical teams, fostering the development of the SUI ecosystem. The application deadline is October 16.
- Enoki Platform: An enterprise solution platform launched by Mysten Labs, enabling businesses to embed public ledger solutions into their applications, products, and services.
3. Circle’s Native USDC to Launch on Sui
Circle, a global fintech company, will soon launch its USDC stablecoin on the Sui network. This integration will enhance Sui’s utility and interoperability, bringing greater liquidity and simplifying transaction experiences. Circle’s native USDC will boost Sui’s competitiveness in the DeFi sector and support cross-chain asset transfers via the Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP), allowing users to create seamless workflows between other chains like Solana and Ethereum.
4. Sui Bridge Launches on Mainnet
Sui Bridge officially launched on the mainnet in 2024, providing a native connection between Ethereum and Sui. The launch of Sui Bridge marks a significant advancement in interoperability for the Sui network, enabling users to seamlessly transfer assets between Ethereum and Sui. The bridge also improves cross-chain asset transfer efficiency and offers more opportunities for DeFi and other application areas. Sui Bridge is secured by the validators of the Sui network, ensuring the safety and reliability of cross-chain transactions.
5. Grayscale: SUI Trust Fund
In August of this year, Grayscale launched the SUI Trust Fund, and the assets under management (AUM) quickly surpassed $1 million. The Grayscale SUI Trust (“Trust”) is one of the first securities fully invested in SUI (“SUI”) and derives its value from the price of SUI. It allows investors to gain exposure to SUI in the form of securities, without the need to directly purchase, store, or custody SUI.
As of October 2, Grayscale’s official website shows that the AUM has exceeded $2.5 million, with the Net Asset Value per Share (NAV) at $26.99.
6. Community Activities:
- Sui Builder House Singapore: A community event showcasing major announcements and breakthrough partnerships in the SUI ecosystem.
- Sui Connect New York: A community gathering hosted by SUI to bring together the Web3 community for idea sharing, learning, and interaction with other builders in the ecosystem.
Sui’s Technical Advantages
Sui blockchain offers several unique technical advantages, driving its innovation in the cryptocurrency space and benefiting developers and users alike. Here are Sui’s main technical strengths:
1. Object-Oriented Account Model
Sui uses a revolutionary object-oriented account model, treating all assets and smart contracts as independent objects, each with its own attributes and methods.
This model offers greater flexibility and scalability, making asset management more intuitive and efficient. Objects operate independently from one another, allowing for parallel processing and updates, significantly increasing the network’s throughput and response times.
The object-oriented approach provides a more intuitive user experience, comparable to owning physical items like houses or cars. On the Sui platform, you can freely lend, transfer, or modify the state of these objects without the complex accounting or partial tracking required in the UTXO model. Moreover, each object in Sui is self-contained and can be independently managed, allowing users and developers to interact with them as though they are dealing with real-world items rather than abstract ledger entries.
In my view, Sui’s object account abstraction combines the strengths of Ethereum’s and Bitcoin’s UTXO account models, representing the next generation of blockchain abstraction with both concurrency and decentralization.
2. Native Randomness
Sui provides native on-chain randomness, generated through its network of validators producing secure random numbers. This native randomness is crucial for developing applications such as probabilistic games, random NFT distributions, and any scenario requiring fair and unpredictable outcomes. Compared to external randomness solutions (e.g., oracles), Sui’s native randomness eliminates the need to trust third-party sources, reducing manipulation risks and enhancing system security and transparency.
3. Native Zero-Knowledge Proofs (zk)
Sui supports native zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP), a technology that allows the verification of transactions without revealing any specific information. ZKP plays a vital role in protecting user privacy, enabling transactions to be validated while keeping personal data confidential.
Sui’s zkLogin is a native feature and the first truly trustless, reliable, and user-friendly authentication mechanism in Web3. zkLogin allows developers to create convenient registration and login processes, enabling users to easily create and manage Sui addresses using familiar Web2 credentials (e.g., Google or Facebook).
Outlook and Challenges
Strengths:
- Superior Technology: SUI leverages the Move programming language, providing enhanced security and scalability, addressing issues faced by existing smart contract platforms.
- Strong Team: With top talent from Facebook and Novi Research, SUI’s development capabilities are high.
- Market Buzz: SUI has garnered broad market attention and capital support, including active collaborations with gaming companies and significant partnerships like Red Bull Racing.
Challenges:
- Market Competition: SUI faces fierce competition from other Layer 1 projects like Solana and Aptos.
- Meme Token Sustainability: Although Sui’s meme projects have attracted attention recently, the overall pool remains relatively small.
- Lack of Breakout Applications: In the last bull market, Solana produced high-impact, breakout applications such as Pumpfun and MagicEden. Similar ecosystem DApps have yet to emerge on Sui.
- Transparency Issues: There are concerns within the community regarding tokenomics and project transparency, which require proactive response from the project team.
Conclusion
The SUI project, with its innovative technical architecture and strong team support, has long-term development potential. Its object-oriented account model, native randomness, and zero-knowledge proofs give it a distinct edge in the blockchain space. However, despite these technical breakthroughs, SUI still faces challenges ahead.
Thus, while SUI’s technical prospects are promising, potential investors should closely monitor the development of its ecosystem, particularly the introduction of new applications and innovations, and carefully evaluate market risks before making investment decisions.
Disclaimer
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