The Sui network's native token, SUI, has surged 50% over the past week, driven by significant staking activity and upcoming feature announcements.
SUI traded around $0.94 on May 4 before climbing to $1.41 on Sunday. Trading volume jumped from $213 million to over $2.5 billion.
The rally follows a disclosure from Nasdaq-listed SUI Group Holdings that it has staked its entire treasury of over 108 million tokens, worth more than $143 million.
Ryan McMillin, CIO of Merkle Tree Capital, told Cointelegraph that a "meaningful supply squeeze" is the clearest near-term trigger.
At Consensus 2026, Mysten Labs co-founder Adeniyi Abiodun announced that zero-fee stablecoin transfers will roll out soon, along with plans for a private transaction feature.
African payments company Paga Group also announced a partnership with Sui to develop blockchain-powered cross-border transfers and stablecoin products.
Privacy-focused cryptocurrency Zcash spiked over 70% last week as traders focus on privacy projects.
McMillin noted that Sui is positioning itself as low-friction rails for payments and liquidity, attractive for agentic AI payments.
"This puts SUI in the same public company treasury/equity market access group as BTC, ETH, SOL, signaling growing institutional comfort," he added.
SUI has settled around $1.31 as of Monday. Short-term momentum could extend, but mid-term success depends on execution of zero-fee rollout and Paga integration traction.