Sui has quickly emerged as a front-runner in the decentralized finance (DeFi) race. In 2023, it has continued its explosive growth and currently sits as the third-largest non EVM chain by Total Value Locked (TVL). The platform’s TVL subsequently skyrocketed from under $25 million at its launch. By May 2025, it had exceeded $2 billion, a testament to the booming confidence and influx of capital into its ecosystem. Sui's core design philosophy prioritizes a seamless user experience (UX) and a developer-friendly environment to drive adoption beyond crypto natives.

Sui’s nascent DeFi ecosystem is built around these principles of ultra-fast transactions and capital efficiency. This powerful combination makes it an attractive platform for nearly all financial transactions. Strategic partnerships and institutional integrations propel this explosive growth. Through interoperability to unite all walkability measures data, we de-risk the platform and get much more capital. Sui development is moving at breakneck speed. By doubling down on the legacy players and making thoughtful improvements to its ecosystem, it makes itself a more formidable player in the global digital asset landscape.

Explosive Growth and TVL Surge

Sui’s DeFi ecosystem is booming. While its launch was half-hearted, its TVL soared from $25 million at launch to more than $2 billion by May 2025. This increase is a strong testament to the growing popularity of the platform and the growing pool of capital that is being deployed in its ecosystem. As of June 2025, Sui’s DeFi TVL was over $1.7 billion. This remarkable expansion surpassed even legendary early initiatives such as Avalanche and Polygon, firmly establishing Sui blockchain platform as a premier development environment.

Sui's position as the third-largest non-EVM chain by TVL highlights its competitive edge and the confidence investors and developers have in its technology and vision. It’s clear that the platform’s inventive features are drawing in and keeping capital. More importantly, it has fostered a deep and diverse ecosystem that enables this success. We wholeheartedly believe Sui is on a transformative, uplifting growth path. It’s aggressively expanding its DeFi offerings and continuing to attract new users, which bodes very well for the future.

The network’s remarkable growth has been propelled by smart partnerships and coordinated integrations within institutions. This development represents the highest level of confidence possible and paves the way for enormous, enterprise-scale capital. Sui's growth is driven by its focus on established players and interoperability, de-risking the platform, attracting capital, and legitimizing Sui's position in the global digital asset landscape.

Developer-Friendly Environment and Interoperability

What sets Sui apart is its obsession with offering an all inclusive, developers paradise. This includes the Sui CLI, Sui VSCode extension, Sui JS (TypeScript SDK), extensive documentation, guides, tutorials, sample code, a developer forum, weekly office hours, and a Telegram channel for support. This powerful toolkit of tools and resources is one of the ways we’re empowering developers. They can finally create and deploy their own innovative DeFi applications on the Sui blockchain.

The platform’s integration with top interoperability protocols such as Axelar and Wormhole make the platform even more attractive. These smart integrations increase the movement of value and information between a growing list of blockchains, including Ethereum and Solana. They provide for easy integration with everyone’s favorite big tech ecosystems. Interoperability makes it easier and more appealing to attract a deeper pool of talent and community members. This allows to build powerful and cross-ecosystem DeFi solutions.

To help accommodate a huge array of use cases in its ecosystem, Sui offers a wide variety of wallets. These are Phantom, Slush (SUI Wallet), Backpack, Ledger, Binance Wallet, Coinbase Wallet, SafePal, Bybit Wallet, Suiet Wallet, Martian Wallet and Ethos Wallet. Through badge-led design these wallets create a much more intuitive user experience. They simplify onboarding for newcomers and veterans alike to plug into the Sui DeFi ecosystem.

Key DeFi Protocols and Future Roadmap

To support liquidity moving to Sui, several important DeFi protocols have come on board and are leading growth in the ecosystem. NAVI, the first native liquidity protocol, is a one-stop lending, borrowing and leveraged yield phone protocol. This protocol is key to providing these valuable financial services and drawing in users looking to get the most out of their yield.

Sui’s stablecoin volume has exploded, going from only $400 million in mid January to almost $1.2 billion by mid May 2025. Monthly stablecoin transfer volume is already over $70 billion! The sharp uptick in stablecoin activity indicates a growing demand for more stable, reliable assets. This trend is especially clear when taking a look at the Sui DeFi ecosystem. Liquid staking Sui provides multiple first-party protocols that make liquid staking possible. These features include SpringSui by Suilend and the Haedal Protocol, which provide users with additional opportunities to earn rewards and participate in the network’s governance.

Sui’s upcoming roadmap clearly highlights a strong commitment to ecosystem expansion and refinement. This has been part of the plans to implement Layer 2 enhancements with Zero-Knowledge (ZK) technology. The expected release of its SuiPlay 0X1 gaming device should serve as a key growth catalyst. These most recent developments are hopeful to make the system even more robust and continue growing the user and developer community.