Sui Surges 50% on Institutional Interest and Stablecoin Push

Sui network’s native token, SUI, has climbed 50% over the past seven days after a Nasdaq-listed company staked a large portion of the token’s supply and developers announced upcoming features, including zero-fee stablecoin transfers and private transactions. 

SUI traded around $0.94 on May 4 before climbing to $1.41 on Sunday, according to CoinGecko. Over the same timeframe, trading volume surged from more than $213 million to over $2.5 billion. 

Ryan McMillin, co-founder and chief investment officer of Australian crypto investment manager Merkle Tree Capital, told Cointelegraph the rally has likely been driven by multiple reinforcing catalysts.

He pointed to a “meaningful supply squeeze” as the “clearest near-term trigger” after Nasdaq-listed SUI Group Holdings revealed Friday that its entire SUI treasury of more than 108 million tokens, worth over $143 million, has been staked.

Sui launched its mainnet in May 2023, aiming to be scalable and process transactions fast enough for financial institutions. African payments infrastructure company Paga Group announced at Consensus 2026 in Miami on Thursday that it has partnered with Sui to develop blockchain‑powered cross‑border transfers and stablecoin products. 

Private fee-free stablecoin promise 

Adeniyi Abiodun, a co-founder of Mysten Labs, the developers behind the Sui network, also announced at Consensus 2026 that zero-fee stablecoin transfers would roll out soon and reiterated plans to add a private transaction feature.

Privacy-focused cryptocurrency Zcash (ZEC) spiked by more than 70% last week as crypto traders started paying closer attention to privacy-focused projects. Privacy had been a significant investment theme for crypto in 2025, with privacy-focused tokens surging despite a broader downturn in the rest of the market.

“This positions Sui as low-friction rails for payments and liquidity and also attractive to agentic AI payments. The Nasdaq angle is also notable: it puts SUI in the same public company treasury/equity market access group as BTC, ETH, SOL and others, signaling growing institutional comfort,” McMillin added.

“Sui is shifting from promising L1 or high-beta play to actual adoption story. The combo of institutional staking, zero-fee ambition and regulated futures access is rare among alts. Watch on-chain metrics post-announcement for confirmation.”

At the same time, Abiodun said Friday the Sui network's prediction market DeepBook Predict was going live on the testnet. A March report from Bitget Wallet and Polymarket found that prediction markets are among the most active on-chain applications, with $25.7 billion in trading volume that month.

Rally's success depends on execution, rollout 

SUI has settled at around $1.31 as of Monday. McMillin said that in the short term, the token could extend its rally because supply shocks and product news generally sustain momentum.

“We are also in an environment where we are seeing green shoots all over the crypto ecosystem and it looks more and more likely the bear market hibernation is over,” he said.

“Medium-term: more uncertain but constructive. Success depends on execution, actual zero-fee rollout, Paga integration traction in Nigeria and stablecoin volume growth. Sui has real tech edges and usage momentum, but token unlocks and broader crypto cycles remain risks.”

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