Comprehensive assessment: Can the rising Sui replicate the momentum of Solana's last bull market?
Overall, Sui does have many similarities with Solana in 2021.Author: Frank, PANews
The Facebook-affiliated public chain Sui has recently garnered significant attention, with the most discussed topic on social media being "the SUI token seems to be replicating the trajectory of SOL in 2021." Many opinions suggest that SUI's recent rise is very similar to the initial phase before SOL's last major surge, leading to the inference that Sui may become the next Solana.
Sui's mainnet launched in May 2023, while Solana's mainnet went live in March 2020. Currently, there is a considerable gap in data between the two. However, from the perspective of growth potential, it is necessary to compare their performances during the same period. PANews compares Sui and Solana's performances in July 2021, more than a year after their respective launches. Although this method may seem somewhat "carving a boat to seek a sword," it can still provide an objective reference and comparison.
On-chain Data: Sui Outperforms Solana in 2021
To make a clearer comparison of the data, we take Solana's data from around July 12, 2021. Sui's data is taken from September 24.
From the on-chain data, Sui's current metrics overall outperform Solana's performance in 2021. In fact, while Solana's token SOL experienced a massive increase in 2021, the ecosystem's data was clearly not as impressive. Particularly in terms of on-chain daily active users, Solana's daily active users in 2021 were generally in the tens of thousands, only breaking the 100,000 mark in 2022. In contrast, Sui has seen a significant change in this metric recently. Before April of this year, Sui's daily active addresses were similar to Solana's in 2021, averaging in the tens of thousands. After experiencing a surge in spam in April, Sui's daily active addresses began to skyrocket to over a million, maintaining above 400,000 even during the quiet market phase in August, and recently experiencing another significant increase, with daily active addresses surpassing a million again. 
Sui Daily Active Address Data
Solana Daily Active Address Data
Among the bullish arguments for Sui, one frequently mentioned metric is that Sui's TPS peak can reach 297,000 transactions, while Solana's maximum peak is 65,000 transactions. However, from the current daily TPS perspective, Sui's TPS data still falls short of Solana's data level in July 2021.
Overall, from an on-chain perspective, Sui's activity level is significantly better than Solana's in July 2021, which indeed provides evidence for Sui to become the next Solana.
Social Media Influence: Sui Lacks a "Star Endorser"
The development of the ecosystem is one aspect, but in the crypto space, the influence of social media sometimes seems to have a greater impact on a token's price. One important reason for Solana's significant rise in 2021 was the public support from FTX founder SBF. When Saber (the fastest-growing DeFi project on Solana in 2021) co-founders Dylan and Ian Macalinao discussed why they chose Solana, they stated, "We had been following SBF for a while, and we were using FTX at the time. From there, we saw that Solana was a great public chain."
In addition to SBF's influence, the investment from the prominent crypto investment firm A16z in Solana also sparked market optimism. However, this part is attributed to capital perspectives, which will be detailed later. Furthermore, in 2021, Solana also gained collaborations and endorsements from several celebrities, including Mike Tyson, Michael Jordan, and Melania Trump. Thus, in 2021, Solana became a bona fide internet celebrity public chain, with social media hyping the narrative that Solana would become the "Ethereum killer," which is quite similar to the current hype around Sui being the next Solana. Mechanism Capital co-founder and partner Andrew Kang commented, "I don't think SUI's market cap will reach SOL's level; its current market cap is only 3.5% of SOL's, which sounds like the arguments the .eth community made before or during SOL's performance surpassing."
In comparison, there are also numerous KOLs supporting Sui on social media today. In September, K33 Research analyst David Zimmerman stated that the Sui network, with its technical advantages and upcoming native gaming console, could become a strong competitor to Solana.
However, Sui seems to lack a "star endorser" like SBF and instead has a large number of industry KOLs discussing bullish topics about Sui on social media.
Seizing Opportunities: Solana Still Dominates the MEME Market
Seizing opportunities is also a key to a project's success. The opportunity in 2021 was NFTs and DeFi, and Solana gained significant attention in the NFT space. In this cycle, MEME is the biggest opportunity, contributing greatly to on-chain data performance, which has clearly been dominated by Solana. However, recent data indicates that Sui's MEME market seems to finally be making progress. Recently, the number of new tokens added daily on Sui has finally surpassed 300, showing exponential growth, whereas before September 10, this figure was only between 30 and 50. Nevertheless, this data level still shows a considerable gap compared to Solana (which still maintains around 10,000 new tokens generated daily). Due to the inability to find data on new token generation for Solana in 2021, a comparison with Solana at that time cannot be made.
From a trading volume perspective, on September 24, Sui's on-chain 24-hour token trading volume was $95 million, while Solana's was $1.1 billion. Solana currently still occupies this important MEME opportunity. Sui also faces multiple competitors, including Base, Ethereum L2, and TON.
Capital Boost: Both Originating from the Same Source
Ultimately, capital support is also an important factor in the growth of a token's market value. Recently, the capital boost for Sui mainly comes from Grayscale. On September 13, the Grayscale SUI Trust's assets under management surpassed $1 million. Additionally, on September 17, Circle co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire announced the launch of USDC & CCTP on the Sui Network.
Looking back at Solana in 2021, FTX not only provided social media influence but also offered substantial financial support to Solana. It is estimated that FTX and its related investment arm Alameda Research invested over $100 million in the Solana ecosystem across various enterprises and projects. In June 2021, a16z injected $314 million into Solana. The strong ties with FTX allowed Solana to secure significant funding to promote and boost its price.
Sui has not had recent financing (there are reports of OTC financing, but this has not been confirmed). The last significant financing was a $300 million round in 2022, interestingly led by FTX Ventures, with participants including a16z Crypto, Jump Crypto, Apollo, Binance Labs, Franklin Templeton, Coinbase Ventures, Circle Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Bixin Ventures, and A&T Capital. Many of these investors were also previous backers of Solana. However, in 2023, Sui's development company Mysten Labs paid $96 million to repurchase shares from FTX.
Market Performance: Similar Trajectories
Returning to the core area of bullish sentiment, the token market. Sui's token has recently experienced a significant surge, rising 256% over 49 days from August 5 to September 23, a performance far superior to other public chains. 
Solana's price chart in July 2021
Looking back at SOL in 2021, from July 20 to August 18, it rose 264% over 29 days. The concentrated rise of both tokens during a certain period indeed shows many similarities.
SUI price chart from August to September 2024
Currently, SUI's circulating market cap is approximately $4.1 billion, while SOL's market cap after its first round of increases reached $18.7 billion. However, SUI's supply is currently at 26.8%, and SUI tokens will continue to unlock every month. Currently, 21% of SUI tokens remain locked. Even if this portion of tokens is added to the circulating market cap, it still does not reach the $18.7 billion of SOL after its first round of increases in 2021.
From the trading enthusiasm perspective, SUI's recent surge may be closely tied to the fervent support from the South Korean market. South Korea's largest exchange, Upbit, currently accounts for about 7.21% of SUI's trading volume, making it the largest exchange for SUI trading after Binance, Coinbase, and OKX.
Overall, Sui indeed shares many similarities with Solana in 2021. Similar social media narratives, similar performance advantages, similar investment institutions, and so on. Perhaps Sui could become the next performance public chain sought after by the market, but there are still several questions for everyone to consider. First, Sui has not achieved the standout effect that Solana had in 2021; the current L1 and L2 tracks are surrounded by strong competitors. Can performance truly remain a killer feature? Second, Sui's data growth often shows explosive increases followed by significant declines. Does this volatile on-chain data truly represent the ecosystem's activity? Third, there have yet to be ecosystem projects that resemble Solana's wealth-effect and breakout DApps like Raydium and MagicEden in the last bull market. Fourth, the unlocking of tokens cannot be ignored. Of course, no one can predict the market, and the above analysis should not be taken as investment advice; please proceed with caution.
