From "Fastest L1" to "Programmable Internet Stack": The Underlying Logic Behind the Value Elevation of SUI Public Chain

With the continuous evolution of the Web3 technology stack, the smart contract language is gradually migrating from the Ethereum-dominated Solidity to the more secure and resource-abstracting Move language. Move was originally developed by Meta for its cryptocurrency project Diem, featuring characteristics such as resources as first-class citizens and formal verification friendliness, and is gradually becoming an important language option for the underlying architecture of the new generation of public chains.

In this evolutionary context, Aptos and SUI have become the dual core representatives of the Move ecosystem. Aptos was launched by the original Diem core team, continuing the native Move technology stack, emphasizing stability, security, and a modular architecture; while SUI is built by Mysten Labs, which inherits the Move security model and introduces object-oriented data structures and parallel execution mechanisms, forming a SUI Move branch that boasts breakthroughs in performance and innovations in development paradigms, reconstructing on-chain resource management and transaction execution models. It can be said that SUI is a Layer 1 that truly reconstructs the operating mechanism of smart contracts and the management of on-chain resources from first principles. It is not competing in "high TPS" but is rewriting how blockchain should operate. This makes SUI not just powerful in performance but also leading in paradigm, serving as a technological foundation for complex on-chain interactions and large-scale Web3 applications.

1. Break through the encirclement and reshape the public chain landscape

After a certain public chain enters a new phase, its performance curve may remain leading; however, it still adheres to the "single-chain high-frequency trading" paradigm. SUI attempts to respond to the demands beyond the performance arms race with horizontal stacking + end-to-end privacy/storage. This is significantly different from Aptos (also using Move, but still a single-dimensional scaling) or certain specialized chains (specialized chains, liquidity depth concentrated). For investment institutions, this means:

• If you prioritize high TPS and continuous transaction fees, certain public chains & private chains may yield faster returns;

• If you are interested in "new types of applications" and horizontal interface control, the alpha of SUI comes from the unsaturated SaaS/privacy/offline track;

• Aptos and SUI have a high overlap in DeFi and BTCFi, and caution is needed to avoid competition within the track.

Comparison with a certain public chain: A certain public chain has experienced multiple cycles of bull and bear markets, resulting in a large ecosystem. As a latecomer, SUI has clear advantages: it uses the more secure Move language, avoiding vulnerabilities caused by Rust + Sealevel parallelism in the certain public chain, and has lower hardware requirements and costs for verification nodes, which is beneficial for decentralization. In terms of performance, both are comparable, with the certain public chain having slightly higher TPS, while SUI has lower confirmation delays. In terms of ecosystem, the certain public chain has more projects and users, focusing on complex DeFi, while SUI is growing faster, with user activity once reaching parity, differentiating itself through new fields such as BTCFi and LSD. The community of the certain public chain is mature, while the international community of SUI still needs to expand. In the future, both may coexist, with the certain public chain leaning towards an ecosystem of crypto natives, while SUI focuses more on Web2 penetration and social gaming. Both pursue performance limits: the certain public chain relies on new multi-threaded technologies, while SUI depends on Mahi-Mahi upgrades.

Comparison with Aptos: Aptos and SUI both originate from Libra/Diem, with Aptos launching first and having once held the title of "the first Move chain" along with a high valuation. Over the past year, Aptos's ecosystem has developed slowly, with user and developer activity levels lower than those of SUI. Reasons include: Aptos uses a complex Block-STM parallelization, which shows significant performance drops under high concurrency, while SUI's object model is more efficient; Aptos positions itself as a stable financial infrastructure, primarily focusing on DeFi and NFTs, with a style similar to Ethereum clones; SUI attempts a more diversified narrative, experiencing rapid user growth (with 8.03 million new token holders far exceeding Aptos), but carries higher risks. In terms of incentives, Aptos has had airdrops but lacks ongoing incentives, while SUI, although without airdrops, receives substantial support from its foundation, with monthly active addresses and on-chain transaction volumes both surpassing those of Aptos. The Aptos team and financial strength are strong, and they may focus on institutional finance or the East Asian market in the future, but currently, the market is more optimistic about SUI.

Comparing a certain specialized chain: This chain emerged in 2023 as a dedicated trading chain based on Cosmos, focusing on order book trading, with a block time of about 500ms. It attempts to capture a certain market, experiencing high short-term popularity, but its TVL and user growth have not been sustained, and its ecological development is limited. Its positioning is too narrow, relying on liquidity mining, making it difficult to form a complete ecosystem. In contrast, SUI takes the general L1 route, supporting diverse applications and demonstrating stronger risk resistance. The cross-chain compatibility and language advantages of the specialized chain are inferior to SUI. Although it may transform or fully integrate into the EVM ecosystem, it is unlikely to threaten SUI in the short term. More noteworthy is Linera, incubated by Mysten, which is positioned for high-frequency micro-payments and may serve as a scaling sidechain for SUI, differing from SUI's positioning.

Comparing Ethereum L2: Ethereum L2 (such as a certain L2) has a thriving ecosystem, with TVL exceeding $2 billion. The advantage of SUI lies in ultra-low latency and high concurrency, which Rollups find hard to match, and its low Gas fees make it suitable for high TPS games and other applications. On the other hand, Ethereum L2 benefits from strong network effects and security endorsement. The competition between SUI and L2 is essentially a competition between a new paradigm (public chain) and a traditional paradigm (Rollup); in the long term, they may coexist, while in the short term, it depends on who can better meet application needs.

2. Striding Forward with Great Momentum, Ecological Data Shines Bright

Since the SUI mainnet launched in May 2023, user growth has shown an exponential trend: by April 2025, over 123 million user addresses have been created on the SUI chain. This number is nearly approaching the cumulative address count of a well-established public chain. In the second half of 2024, the average monthly active addresses on SUI were around 10 million; however, starting from mid-February 2025, this metric saw a dramatic leap, steadily exceeding 40 million by mid-April, with monthly activity more than quadrupling. In terms of new users, a "turning point" occurred at the end of 2024—average daily new wallet addresses rose from 150,000 to a sustained level of over 1 million thereafter.

In particular, the rise of new public chains is often accompanied by a large influx of cross-chain funds. SUI welcomed its first wave of traffic through third-party bridging in the second half of 2024: as of November 2024, approximately $944.8 million has been bridged in total. By mid-2025, SUI's total cross-chain locked value (bridged TVL) is around $2.55 billion. This indicates that in addition to the internal DeFi TVL, there are also a large number of assets serving as bridging assets, supporting the liquidity demand on SUI. Moreover, as DeFi activities heat up, the supply of stablecoins in the SUI ecosystem has risen significantly: in mid-April 2025, the market capitalization of SUI stablecoins reached a historical high of over $800 million. This scale is already comparable to that of stablecoins from established public chains, highlighting the increasing trust users have in the SUI network for value storage and transfer. In terms of stablecoin composition, USDC remains the absolute leader, consistently accounting for over 60% of the market cap. USDT was also issued on SUI at the end of 2024, maintaining a certain level of activity.

Although it still lags behind certain public chains in throughput, SUI has completely covered high-frequency scenarios such as on-chain order book DEX, real-time PvP, and social interactions. Due to quick finality + DAG parallel execution, it provides a natural fit for micro-payments, in-game asset exchanges, and social "likes/comments" type writes. With the upcoming upgrade of Mahi-Mahi targeting >400,000 TPS, SUI is continuously solidifying its scalability moat. However, the 150 min downtime event on 2024-11-21 serves as a warning that the core protocol's stability under high concurrency boundary conditions still needs continuous verification. In addition, low average Gas is the core selling point for SUI to attract developers for "on-chain real-time applications"; however, if peak rates repeatedly surge to high levels, user loss is likely to occur in gaming and social scenarios. Holders/stakers need to pay attention to the storage fund parameters and the rhythm of L2 solutions to assess the long-term cost curve.

Currently, the SUI ecosystem data is quite impressive: First, the resilience of its funding structure is taking shape. The steady state TVL in Q2 2025 is approximately 1.6 to 1.8 B USD, with stablecoins + LSD accounting for about 55%. The fact that it can retain funds without incentive subsidies indicates that the "sticky capital" after the hot money cycle has begun to settle. In addition, the proportion of institutional addresses holding assets has increased from 6% to 14% (doubling within six months), while the share of retail funds has decreased but their activity has increased. This concentration of funds is more active, providing a safety cushion for the next round of leverage/derivative expansion.

Second, the developer retention rate is higher than that of similar public chains. According to a certain statistic, the 24-month survival rate (dev commits on GitHub for two consecutive years) is SUI = 37% > Aptos 31% > a certain specialized chain 18%. The key incentives include: the object model + Walrus/Seal native SDK reduces the cognitive cost of "rewriting on-chain structures"; most teams prefer to write their first contract on SUI rather than porting it.

Third, the user structure is bimodal (DeFi + content entertainment), driving the diversification of on-chain interactions. DeFi contracts account for about 49% of the on-chain call volume; content applications such as FanTV, RECRD, and Pebble City contribute around 35% of the call volume. Social and consumer applications have yet to truly launch, representing a potential blue ocean. The Web3 transformation of content creation (music, video) is already emerging in SUI, but there is room for further development. In particular, SUI has a significant number of users in Southeast Asia, and social products tailored to the habits of users in that region could be considered. Localized on-chain short videos and on-chain fan tipping might have a market. As these products grow, they could lead to advertising, data analysis, and other businesses, forming a positive cycle for the ecological economy. The growth period for Social products is relatively long, but once successful, they tend to have strong user retention.

For example, by March 2025, the locked amount of BTC on the SUI chain will exceed 1,000 BTC; in April, BTC-related assets will account for 10% of SUI's total TVL, including forms like wBTC, LBTC, stBTC, etc. In other words, there will be approximately $250 million worth of Bitcoin actively utilized on SUI. These Bitcoin assets will be fully utilized on SUI: users can collateralize BTC-backed assets with lending protocols to exchange for stablecoins, achieving "earning interest on holdings", or provide BTC/stablecoin liquidity to earn transaction fees. A certain protocol's all-in-one liquidity solutions will quickly support BTC as collateral and introduce yield aggregation strategies such as "BTC Plus".

Fourth, potential growth curve: RWA and native derivatives have two major gaps. In terms of RWA, Seal/Nautilus provides compliant privacy + verifiable computation, serving as a natural foundation for issuing bonds and fund shares; it has planned to issue rwa revenue certificates on SUI in collaboration with an organization ( and to collaborate on testing the tokenization of physical assets/bonds with an existing SUI ETP scale of approximately 300M USD ) under a certain company (. The opportunities arising from this include providing SaaS for RWA issuance, compliance identity as a service, on-chain secondary exchanges, and valuation oracles, etc. Regarding native perpetual/options, the current on-chain Perp OI is approximately 20m, with a certain protocol accounting for about 70%. The difference between a certain application chain and SUI is "performance vs liquidity aggregation". If SUI decides to implement composable/cross-protocol matching at the consensus layer (such as DeepBook 2.0), there is a chance to establish a unified derivatives infrastructure, with a potential growth ceiling of 10x.

3. Forward-looking layout, SUI Foundation, certain institutions, Mysten Labs, etc. become key ecological forces

A thriving ecosystem cannot exist without the catalytic and empowering effects of strategic capital. In the process of the SUI ecosystem's emergence to rapid rise, a certain institution played a crucial role. Its investment strategy is not a simple financial bet, but rather a forward-looking and systematic layout based on a deep understanding of SUI's technical architecture and ecological potential, which has catalyzed the prosperity of the SUI ecosystem.

The Sui application ecosystem currently revolves primarily around financial categories (DeFi + BTCFi), followed by entertainment categories (GameFi/NFT/social). AI-native tools and derivatives are still in their early stages. The real gaps are concentrated in RWA lending and on-chain derivatives: the former is waiting for the implementation of privacy compliance solutions from Seal/Nautilus, while the latter requires stronger matching depth and risk hedging tools.

A certain institution is recognized by the market as one of the earliest discoverers and strategic co-builders of the SUI ecosystem. Shortly after the SUI mainnet went live, when the ecosystem was still in its early stages, this institution made decisive moves with its keen judgment and strategically invested in multiple core projects. These projects cover key sectors in the DeFi field, including decentralized exchanges (DEX), lending, and liquid staking (LST).