Sui Hits New DEX Volume High: Cetus, Bluefin Fuel Growth

Sui set a brand new milestone in decentralized trade (DEX) exercise in Q1. In line with Messari’s report, the community’s common every day DEX quantity hit an all-time excessive of $304.3 million, a 14.6% quarter-over-quarter improve. Cetus and Bluefin emerged because the dominant gamers, which contributed a mixed $239.5 million in every day quantity, whereas smaller DEXs like Kriya, DeepBook, and Turbos helped diversify liquidity sources.

The spike in on-chain buying and selling alerts a maturing DeFi ecosystem, at the same time as Sui’s native token, SUI, underperformed the broader market.

SUI Underwhelming Efficiency in Q1

Messari revealed that SUI’s circulating market cap fell 40.3% to $7.2 billion, which is way steeper than the crypto market’s total 18.2% dip throughout the identical interval. Regardless of this, Sui climbed two spots to grow to be the Thirteenth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap.

Alternatively, Sui’s community charges, which comprise fuel charges from transaction execution, together with computation and non-refundable storage prices, fell sharply within the first quarter of 2025. Complete charges dropped 33.3% quarter-over-quarter to $3.6 million, or 1.0 million SUI.

Whereas the 40.3% decline in SUI’s market worth contributed to the drop in charge income when measured in {dollars}, the 44.4% decline in charges denominated in SUI means that diminished on-chain exercise and decrease person demand additionally performed a big position within the total lower. Validator payouts have been straight impacted by the slowdown.

DeFi and NFT Exercise on Sui

Past DeFi, NFT exercise remained robust on Sui. Complete NFT buying and selling quantity reached 13.2 million SUI for the reason that mainnet launch. Main platforms akin to Clutchy, TradePort, and BlueMove drove market traction. Moreover, collections akin to Fuddies and SuiFrens: Bullsharks and Capys dominated buying and selling. Throughout the identical interval, Sui additionally noticed institutional engagement ramp up notably.

Grayscale’s addition of SUI to its Sensible Contract Platform Ex-Ethereum Fund in January marked a turning level, which signaled validation from a high digital asset supervisor. By February, Libre Capital launched its Libre Gateway on Sui, which allowed tokenized entry to hedge fund methods, together with choices from Brevan Howard and BlackRock.

In March, World Liberty Monetary introduced its resolution to associate with Sui. This was adopted by one more notable regulatory improvement in the identical month, when Canary Capital filed for the primary US-based SUI ETF.

In the meantime, Sui’s robust decentralized trade momentum has confronted vital headwinds in Q2 following a serious exploit on Cetus Protocol. On Might twenty second, a $223 million assault compromised Cetus’ Concentrated Liquidity Market Maker (CLMM) swimming pools, considerably disrupting buying and selling exercise. Whereas the protocol has pledged full person compensation, supported by its treasury and a strategic mortgage from the Sui Basis, the restoration is determined by an on-chain neighborhood vote to unlock $162 million in frozen belongings.