From High Performance to Programmability Internet Stack: The Underlying Logic Behind the Value Elevation of SUI Public Chain

As the Web3 technology stack continues to evolve, the smart contract language is gradually migrating from the Ethereum-dominated Solidity to the Move language, which offers greater security and resource abstraction capabilities. Move was initially developed by Meta for its cryptocurrency project Diem and possesses features such as treating resources as first-class citizens and being friendly to formal verification, making it an important language option for the underlying architecture of the new generation of public blockchains.

In this evolutionary context, Aptos and SUI have become the dual core representatives of the Move ecosystem. Aptos is launched by the original Diem core team, Aptos Labs, continuing the native Move technology stack, emphasizing stability, security, and modular architecture; while SUI is built by Mysten Labs, inheriting the Move security model while introducing object-oriented data structures and parallel execution mechanisms, forming a SUI Move branch with significant performance breakthroughs and innovative development paradigms, reconstructing on-chain resource management and transaction execution models. SUI is a Layer 1 that reconstructs the smart contract execution mechanism and on-chain resource management from first principles. It is not pursuing high TPS but rewriting the way blockchains operate. This makes SUI not only 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 out of the encirclement and reshape the public chain landscape

After Solana enters the Firedancer era, its performance curve may remain ahead; however, it still represents the "single-chain high-frequency trading" paradigm. SUI attempts to address the demands beyond the performance arms race with horizontal stacking and end-to-end privacy/storage. This constitutes a significant difference compared to Aptos or Sei. For investment institutions, this means:

• If you value high TPS and continuous transaction fees, Solana and dedicated chains may yield faster returns.

• If you value "new type 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 one should be cautious of internal competition in the track.

Compared to Solana: Solana has undergone multiple rounds of bull and bear market trials, resulting in a large ecosystem. As a newcomer, SUI has distinct advantages: it uses the more secure Move language, avoiding the vulnerabilities caused by Solana's Rust + Sealevel parallel execution, and has lower hardware requirements, which reduces the cost for validation nodes, benefiting decentralization. In terms of performance, the two are comparable, with Solana having slightly higher TPS and SUI having lower confirmation delays. In terms of ecosystem, Solana has more projects and users, focusing on complex DeFi, while SUI is growing faster, with user activity once reaching parity, achieving differentiation through new fields like BTCFi and LSD. The Solana community is mature, while the SUI international community still needs to expand. In the future, both may coexist, with Solana leaning towards a crypto-native ecosystem and SUI focusing more on Web2 penetration and gaming social aspects. Both pursue performance limits: Solana relies on Firedancer's multi-threading, while SUI depends on Mahi-Mahi upgrades.

Comparison with Aptos: Aptos and SUI both originate from Libra/Diem, with Aptos launching earlier and receiving the "first Move chain" halo and high valuation. Over the past year, the development of the Aptos ecosystem has been slow, with user and developer activity lower than that of SUI. Reasons include: Aptos uses a complex Block-STM parallel processing, with performance significantly decreasing under high concurrency, while SUI's object model is more efficient; Aptos positions itself as a robust financial infrastructure, focusing heavily on DeFi and NFTs, similar in style to Ethereum clones; SUI attempts a diverse narrative, with rapid user growth but higher risk. In terms of incentives, Aptos has had airdrops but lacks ongoing incentives, while SUI, though lacking airdrops, has strong support from its foundation, with monthly active addresses and on-chain transaction volumes both exceeding those of Aptos. The Aptos team has strong funding capabilities and may focus on institutional finance or the East Asian market in the future, but currently, the market favors SUI.

Comparison with Sei: Sei is a dedicated trading chain that emerged in 2023, based on Cosmos, focusing on order book trading with a block time of about 500ms. It attempts to seize the market left by Solana's outages, 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 a general L1 route, supporting diverse applications and being more resilient to risks. Sei's cross-chain compatibility and language advantages are inferior to SUI, and while it may transform or fully integrate into the EVM ecosystem, it is unlikely to pose a threat to SUI in the short term. More noteworthy is Linera, incubated by Mysten, which is positioned for high-frequency micropayments and may serve as a scaling sidechain for SUI, differing in positioning from SUI.

Comparing Ethereum L2: The Ethereum L2 ecosystem is thriving, with a TVL exceeding $2 billion. The advantages of SUI lie in ultra-low latency and high concurrency, making it difficult for Rollups to compete, along with low Gas fees, suitable for high TPS games and other applications. Meanwhile, Ethereum L2 enjoys strong network effects and security backing. The competition between SUI and L2 is essentially a contest between new paradigms and traditional paradigms, which may coexist in the long term, while in the short term it depends on who can better meet application demands.

2. Striding Forward, Ecological Data Shines

Since the launch of the SUI mainnet in May 2023, user growth has shown an exponential trend: by April 2025, over 123 million user addresses had been created on the SUI chain. This number is almost approaching the cumulative address count of established public chains like Tron. 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" emerged at the end of 2024 — the 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 is set to welcome its first wave of traffic through third-party bridging in the latter half of 2024: by November 2024, approximately $944.8 million has been bridged in total. By mid-2025, the total locked amount for SUI across chains is expected to be around $2.55 billion. This indicates that, in addition to the TVL within DeFi, a significant amount of assets remain as bridging assets, supporting the liquidity demand on SUI. Furthermore, as DeFi activities heat up, the supply of stablecoins in the SUI ecosystem has surged: by mid-April 2025, the market capitalization of SUI stablecoins reached a historic high of over $800 million. This scale is already comparable to the stablecoin levels of established public chains like Tron, 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 capitalization. USDT was also issued on SUI at the end of 2024, maintaining a certain level of activity.

Although it still lags behind Solana in terms of throughput, SUI has fully covered high-frequency scenarios such as on-chain order book DEX, real-time PvP, and social interactions. Due to fast finality + DAG parallel execution, it naturally fits the track for micropayments, in-game asset exchanges, and social "likes/comments" type writes. With the upcoming upgrade targeting >400000 TPS, SUI is continuously solidifying its scalability moat. However, the 150-minute downtime event on November 21, 2024, serves as a warning that the stability of the core protocol under high concurrency boundary conditions still needs ongoing validation. In addition, low average Gas is SUI's core selling point to attract developers of "on-chain real-time applications"; however, if peak rates repeatedly hit high levels, user churn may occur in gaming and social scenarios. Holders/stakers need to pay attention to storage fund parameters and L2 solution rhythms to assess the long-term cost curve.

Currently, the SUI ecosystem data is quite impressive: First, the resilience of its funding structure is forming. The steady-state TVL in Q2 2025 is approximately 1.6 to 1.8 billion USD, with stablecoins + LSD accounting for about 55%. The ability to retain without incentive subsidies indicates that the "sticky capital" after the hot money cycle has begun to take shape. In addition, the proportion of institutional addresses holding has increased from 6% to 14%, while the share of retail funds has decreased but their activity has increased. Funds are becoming more concentrated yet more active, providing a safety cushion for the next round of leverage/derivatives expansion.

Secondly, the developer retention rate is higher than that of other comparable public chains. According to statistics from Electric Capital, the 24-month survival rate (dev continues to submit on GitHub for two years) is SUI=37% > Aptos 31% > Sei 18%. The key factors behind this are: the object model + Walrus/Seal native SDK reduces the mental cost of "rewriting on-chain structures"; most teams are willing to write their first contract on SUI rather than porting it.

Third, the user structure is becoming bimodal (DeFi + content entertainment), driving the diversification of on-chain interactions. DeFi contracts account for about 49% of on-chain calls; content applications such as FanTV, RECRD, and Pebble City contribute approximately 35% of the call volume. Social and consumer applications have not yet truly launched and represent a potential blue ocean. The Web3 transformation of content creation (music, video) has already shown signs on SUI, but there is room for further development. Especially since there are many users in Southeast Asia on SUI, it may be worthwhile to consider social products tailored to the habits of users in that region. Localized on-chain short videos, on-chain fan rewards, etc., may have a market. As these products grow, they could give rise to businesses like advertising and data analysis, forming a positive cycle for the ecological economy. Social products have a longer growth period, but once successful, they exhibit strong stickiness.

For example, by March 2025, the locked amount of BTCFi on the SUI chain has exceeded 1000 BTC; by April, BTC-type assets have accounted for 10% of the total TVL on SUI, including forms such as wBTC, LBTC, and stBTC. In other words, there are already approximately 250 million USD worth of Bitcoin functioning on SUI. These Bitcoin assets are fully utilized on SUI: users can mortgage BTC-backed assets to lending protocols in exchange for stablecoins to achieve "holding coins to earn interest," or provide BTC/stablecoin liquidity to earn transaction fees. One-stop liquidity protocols like Navi quickly supported BTC as collateral and launched yield aggregation strategies such as "BTC Plus."

Fourth, potential growth curve: two major gaps between RWA and native derivatives. In terms of RWA, Seal/Nautilus provides compliant privacy + verifiable computation, which serves as a natural foundation for issuing bonds and fund shares; it has collaborated with Open Market Group, 21Shares, etc. to test the tokenization of physical assets/bonds, which brings opportunities such as RWA issuance SaaS, compliant identity as a service, on-chain secondary exchanges, and valuation oracles. Regarding native perpetual/options, the current on-chain Perp OI is about 20m, with Bluefin accounting for about 70%. The difference between Hyperliquid-style application chains and SUI is "performance vs liquidity aggregation". If SUI decides to implement composable/cross-protocol matching at the consensus layer, there is an opportunity to develop a unified derivatives infrastructure, with a potential growth space of 10x.

III. Forward-looking layout, SUI Foundation, OKX Ventures, Mysten Labs and others become key ecological forces

A prosperous ecosystem cannot do without the catalysis and empowerment of strategic capital. During the process of the SUI ecosystem's emergence and rapid rise, OKX Ventures played a crucial role. Its investment strategy is not merely a financial bet, but a forward-looking and systematic layout based on a deep understanding of SUI's technological architecture and ecological potential, thus catalyzing the prosperity of the SUI ecosystem.

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

OKX Ventures is recognized by the market as one of the earliest discoverers and strategic builders of the SUI ecosystem. Shortly after the launch of the SUI mainnet, when the ecosystem was still in its early stages, OKX Ventures made decisive moves with its keen judgment and strategically invested in several core projects such as Cetus, Navi, Momentum, and Haedal. These projects cover key areas in the DeFi sector, including decentralized exchanges (DEX), lending, and liquid staking (LST), laying a solid foundation for the subsequent explosive growth of the financial ecosystem on SUI. For example:

• Momentum: is an innovative DEX deployed on the SUI blockchain, co-founded by ChefWEN, a former core engineer of Meta Libra. Since its launch in 2025, trading volume has rapidly surpassed 1 billion USD,