SUI User Growth Surges as Price Hits Key Turning Point | What’s Next?

SUI traded at about $0.98 on March 25, 2026, while on-chain usage and DeFi liquidity remained elevated enough to keep the token at a technical and fundamental inflection point. CoinGecko priced SUI at $0.9796 with roughly $430 million in 24-hour volume, while DefiLlama showed Sui with about $612.7 million in DeFi TVL and $578.9 million in stablecoins. The setup matters because price has stabilized near the $1 threshold even after a sharp drawdown from its 2025 highs, leaving traders to judge whether user growth can translate into renewed demand.

Sui’s story is no longer just about throughput claims or ecosystem marketing. The harder question in late March 2026 is whether the network’s user and liquidity base is strong enough to support a durable repricing in the token after a prolonged reset. That makes this a price-movement story with a fundamentals overlay: spot price, trading volume, DeFi TVL, stablecoin depth, derivatives positioning, and the next token unlock all matter at once.

$0.98 Price Leaves SUI 81.7% Below Peak but Above Its Cycle Floor

The immediate price fact is simple: SUI is trading just under $1, according to CoinGecko. That places the token 81.7% below its all-time high of $5.35, but still 168.4% above its all-time low of $0.3648. In market-structure terms, that is the definition of a turning-point zone: far below peak euphoria, yet still well above capitulation lows.

Historical context sharpens the picture. CoinGecko’s daily data show SUI closed at $1.40 on January 25, 2026, then fell to $0.8602 on February 24 before recovering toward $0.98 by mid-March. That means the token has spent two months compressing into a lower range rather than extending the January decline in a straight line. For traders, the $1 area matters because it is both a round-number threshold and a level the market has repeatedly tested during March.

How $612.7M TVL and $578.9M Stablecoins Support the User-Growth Case

Price alone does not explain why Sui still draws attention. Liquidity on the chain remains meaningful. DefiLlama listed Sui at about $612.7 million in TVL, with stablecoins on the network at roughly $578.9 million and 24-hour DEX volume at $43.43 million. Those figures matter because they show the chain still has usable capital, not just dormant wallets.

There is also a longer arc here. Sui’s own ecosystem posts said the network crossed $2 billion in TVL in January 2025, after reaching $1 billion only three months earlier. By March 2026, TVL is far below that peak, which mirrors the token’s price reset. But the chain has not returned to an early-stage base case; instead, it still holds hundreds of millions in TVL and nearly $579 million in stablecoins, suggesting the ecosystem retained a meaningful liquidity core after the broader unwind.

User-growth evidence is directionally supported by Sui and third-party research, even if public point-in-time dashboards are less accessible in search than price pages. Sui’s February 2026 ecosystem recap said the network saw sustained growth across developers, applications, and on-chain activity through 2025, while a 2025 research report cited daily active addresses around 1.7 million at peak periods. That does not prove March 25, 2026 daily users are at the same level, but it does show that Sui entered 2026 with a large activity base relative to many newer Layer 1 peers.

Why the Next Unlock and Derivatives Reset Matter at $1

The near-term risk is not hidden. Token unlock pressure remains part of the SUI trading narrative. CoinGlass news coverage flagged an April 1 SUI unlock worth roughly $164.34 million in an earlier cycle, and Tokenomist analysis published in March 2026 said SUI historically traded 39.6% above the unlock-day level 30 days before unlocks, then fell 20.3% by the end of the 30-day post-unlock period. That does not guarantee the same outcome this time, but it is a documented pattern traders are likely watching.

Derivatives also point to caution rather than outright momentum. Search results tied to CoinGlass data in early March showed SUI open interest around $424.6 million to $458.7 million, with funding rates turning negative in some readings. Because those figures come from secondary reporting rather than a directly opened CoinGlass market page, they are best treated as evidence of a softer derivatives backdrop, not an exact live print for March 25. The broader implication is still clear: leverage has cooled, and that reduces both upside fuel and liquidation risk.

3 Paths for SUI as the $1 Threshold Gets Retested

The first scenario is stabilization. If SUI holds near or above $1 while TVL and stablecoin balances remain broadly steady, the market may start treating the March range as a base rather than a pause before another leg down. That case would rely more on spot demand and ecosystem retention than on leverage.

The second scenario is supply-led weakness. If the next unlock revives the pattern described by Tokenomist and pushes fresh selling into a still-cautious derivatives market, SUI could revisit the February range around $0.86 to $0.90. That would not erase the user-growth story, but it would delay any repricing tied to it.

The third scenario is a fundamentals catch-up trade. If on-chain activity, stablecoin growth, or DeFi volumes improve while price remains compressed, SUI could attract traders looking for a lag between network usage and token valuation. That is an inference from the current mix of data, not a forecast. The evidence today supports a live tension between resilient usage metrics and a token still trying to reclaim a higher range.