Sui (SUI) has gone up by nearly 20% in the past 24 hours, as the token is resuming a rally that has likely been triggered by a successful bullish breakout above its 200-day exponential moving average (EMA).
Trading volumes rose by 30% during this period and currently sit at $1.14 billion, accounting for as much as 24% of the asset’s circulating market cap.
This indicates that the buying pressure is quite strong and seems to be heavily influenced by an ongoing short squeeze.
Short Liquidations for SUI Futures Started to Rise Since September 18
Data from CoinGlass shows that short liquidations spiked near $3 million in the past day. This is the third-highest single-day wipeout for bears in the past 90 days. Liquidations started to accelerate on September 18, as SUI rose past the $0.80 mark.
The crypto market as a whole started to rally shortly after the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates for the first time since 2023. Market participants are pricing in a second rate hike in 2026, and envision multiple other rate increases next year.
Even though this should depress the price of cryptocurrencies, it appears that investors were already prepared for this hawkish scenario. Hence, the rally appears to be a normal recovery at a point when adoption in the United States seems to be accelerating.
For SUI, supportive comments from the head of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) are a tailwind, as favorable regulations in the country could pave the way for capital raises to fund ecosystem expansion initiatives.
Sui’s On-Chain Data Shows that Adoption and Ecosystem Growth Remain Weak
As a result of its latest climb, SUI has managed to trim its yearly losses to 19%. However, this layer-one blockchain remains a notable laggard this year, as competing networks like Solana (SOL) and Ethereum (ETH) boast much lower year-to-date losses of 2.7% and 8%, respectively.
Turning to on-chain data, we can see the reason why. Sui’s network usage and DeFi numbers remain heavily depressed despite what appears to be the beginning of a bull market.
According to DeFi Llama, DEX volumes within the Sui blockchain closed last month at $1.2 billion, or 95% below their October 2025 peak. App fees have experienced a similar downturn as well.
Meanwhile, stablecoin reserves on Sui have declined from an all-time high of $1.1 billion to $482 million as of last month. That said, they broke a long-dated downtrend last month, adding $62 million compared to July.
This could be an early indication that capital is coming back to the Sui ecosystem. However, when compared to its peers, adoption levels and ecosystem growth remain too slow and justify the SUI token’s underperformance compared to SOL, ETH, and others.
SUI Eyes Rally to $1.42 After 200-Day EMA Breakout
Heading to the daily chart, we can see that SUI just broke above its 200-day exponential moving average (EMA) and bounced off this technical indicator after retesting it from above.
A bull market has officially started for this token, and bullish momentum is accelerating after today’s confirmed break of structure. We expect that SUI will hit $1.42 at some point in the next few weeks, aided by this wave of positive sentiment that is suddenly hitting the crypto market as a whole.
