Sui goes hog wild
What's being bought and sold*
TOP TRENDING ASSETS
*Trading activity in the past 24 hours on the Uphold platform, as of 8 a.m. 25th April 2025.
The combined total of buy and sell percentages can exceed 100% due to customers who engage in both buying and selling the same asset within the 24-hour time frame.
Don’t invest in crypto unless you're prepared to lose all the money you invest. This is a high-risk investment and you should not expect to be protected if something goes wrong. Take 2 minutes to learn more.
What’s up
Scalability-Centric Sui Snags DeFi Spotlight
Okay, Sui is stealing the show. The layer-1 network's native SUI spent the past week soaring 70% toward $3.75. Although do note SUI is still 80% removed from its ATH above $5 hit some four months ago.
Using "parallel transaction execution," Sui's mission, to be as scalable as can be, has captured growing attention among decentralized finance (DeFi) users (Coinspeaker).
Sui-based DEXs recorded a 177% spike in volume in the past seven days. Sui's total value locked (TVL) in that same span jumped by 38% to reach $1.64 billion, according to DefiLlama.
SUI is the 13th-largest digital asset on the CoinGecko chart of largest coins based on market capitalization. SUI's market cap is closing in on $12B, trailing Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), No. 12, at $12.1B. SUI had gained 23% in the past 24 hours, as of 7:45 a.m. (EST).
As for Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP and the rest of the Big Ten cohort, well, as it turns out, there's been a mild green up amidst a swirl of unsolved tariff-related mysteries.
BTC is flirting with $94K again. BTC, ETH and XRP all saw 2% gains in the past 24 hours. Total crypto market cap is back above $3T.
What's down
Tech Stocks Slip After Historic Rebound
What a week it's been for U.S. tech stocks. With less caustic rhetoric coming from President Trump, investors seemed to sense hope for the chance of relief on the trade war front. The Nasdaq 100 index climbed 5.4% in a jaunt made all the more memorable by a stretch (Monday to Wednesday) of three consecutive 2%+ sessions, a feat not seen since the dot com era of '00.
Checking Nasdaq futures at 8:15 a.m. (EST), we saw red. The index was down slightly (-0.30%) ahead of the opening bell.
What's next
Polygon Chief: DeFi Needs To Ditch Hype Cycles
Polygon is pushing for a DeFi re-set. In an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph, Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron called on protocols to abandon short-term yield strategies and instead embrace chain-owned liquidity.
This would represent a fundamental shift in how DeFi protocols manage liquidity. It comes at a time when the crypto lending market is nicely picking back up, but not quite where it left off.
In 2022, in the wake of large-scale implosion events, crypto valuations plunged and a slew of centralized finance (CeFi) lenders, including Genesis, Celsius and Voyager, faltered and eventually filed for bankruptcy. The CeFi lending scene got obliterated. "Open borrows" across CeFi and DeFi in all fell to a nadir of $1.8B in Q4 of '22, according to Cointelegraph.
DeFi lending has made some serious strides toward recovery. As of the end of last year, DeFi open borrows rose to $19B across 12 chains and 20 lending apps. That's a 959% increase over eight quarters.
As for Polygon's Boiron, he remains convinced that DeFi protocols can no longer sustain a business-as-usual approach of fueling cycles of “mercenary capital” chasing sky-high annual percentage yields (APYs). “It’s just renting liquidity," Boiron said. "It’s not real loyalty.”
Such short-sighted strategies lead to fleeting liquidity that vanishes when yields drop or token prices falter, he added.
Boiron spelled out Polygon’s vision for sustainable DeFi, emphasizing chain-owned liquidity and transparent economic models. And he remains optimistic about regulatory support in Europe and the U.S.
The next year or so should see DeFi attract "a lot more institutional involvement,” Boiron predicted.
