KEYTAKEAWAYS
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Sui emerged in 2025 as a serious challenger to Solana and Ethereum, achieving record daily activity and rapid ecosystem growth.
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Ethereum still leads in value and security, Solana dominates high-frequency retail activity, while Sui leverages speed, low fees, and developer momentum.
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The competition among the three chains highlights a new Web3 landscape where performance, user retention, and trust define future winners.
CONTENT
FROM NEWCOMER TO CHALLENGER: THE EXPLOSIVE GROWTH OF SUI
In 2025, Sui transformed from a “latecomer” in the crypto world into a challenger that everyone had to take seriously. Built by Mysten Labs, Sui was not considered an equal rival to Solana or Ethereum at its launch. But over the past year, it has broken through limits in user growth, transaction volume, and developer activity with surprising speed. On-chain data showed that Sui set new records multiple times in 2025: in April and May, daily transactions exceeded 30 million, and on August 13 daily active addresses even briefly surpassed Solana, reaching 3.5 million. This moment shocked the market and reminded many of Solana’s own breakout years ago. The difference is that Sui’s growth was not just a short-term anomaly, but was backed by the expansion of stablecoin supply, new DeFi protocols, and adoption in gaming and NFTs. Over the past year, Sui’s stablecoin market cap passed $1.1 billion, and its monthly transfer volume even outpaced Solana, showing that real liquidity was moving. Compared to Ethereum’s steady 500,000–700,000 daily active users and Solana’s millions of regular users, Sui’s growth curve looked like an unstoppable wave, attracting newcomers with efficiency, low fees, and innovation.
Still, Sui’s surge carried the marks of a young network. The explosion of new addresses was fueled by airdrops, incentives, and new launches. The challenge is to turn this one-time crowd into long-term participants. Solana faced a similar situation after its 2024 airdrop wave, but it retained millions of daily users thanks to a mature DeFi and NFT ecosystem. Ethereum, though costly, has the deepest institutional and community trust, keeping user stickiness the strongest. For Sui to stay in the three-horse race, it must show retention after the initial rush. The real test of user quality and ecosystem depth has only just begun.
DEFI AND NFT: THE ARENAS OF EXPANSION
In the competition of public blockchains, DeFi and NFTs are the clearest measures of on-chain activity. Ethereum still dominates in value: its DeFi TVL in 2025 held steady at $30–40 billion, far above all other networks. From Uniswap to Aave to new Layer2 projects, most key innovations still began on Ethereum. Solana, by contrast, excelled in activity thanks to its ultra-low fees and high throughput. In 2025, Solana processed tens of millions of daily transactions, with DEX volumes in the billions of dollars, and its NFT ecosystem leveraged compressed NFTs to enable mass minting, with over 110 million NFTs minted in total. This high-frequency, low-cost environment made Solana the first choice for retail users.
Sui also impressed in this arena. In Q2 2025, its DeFi TVL broke $2.55 billion for the first time, growing more than 20x in a year. Though still smaller than Solana’s $5 billion or Ethereum’s tens of billions, its growth was the fastest of all. Stablecoin supply on Sui reached $1.15 billion mid-year, with USDC making up two-thirds. Stablecoins are not only payment tools but also a sign of outside trust, and when Sui’s monthly stablecoin transfers surpassed Solana, it signaled a shift in real capital flows. In NFTs, Sui minted over 52 million NFTs in less than two years, with more than 76,000 collections, a scale that surprised even older chains. While trading volume still lagged Ethereum and Solana, Sui’s ultra-low minting costs and its innovative Kiosk model opened new possibilities for gaming, digital collectibles, and social apps.
DEVELOPERS AND PERFORMANCE: A THREE-WAY TECH BATTLE
If users and liquidity show external growth, developers and performance decide long-term survival. Ethereum still had the largest community, with over 6,000 monthly active developers. Growth has slowed, but innovation in zero-knowledge proofs, MEV defense, and account abstraction continues. Solana had about 2,500 developers, less than Ethereum, but in the past two years it led the entire industry in new developer inflow. With its high-performance design and the Firedancer client, Solana remained attractive to builders. Sui showed the sharpest growth curve: by mid-2025, it had more than 1,400 active developers per month, ranking among the top L1 ecosystems. Its Move language and parallel execution model gave developers a novel and safer experience, forming the world’s largest Move community.
On performance, the three chains showed clear contrasts. Ethereum stayed at 10–15 TPS, with finality taking minutes, forcing users toward Layer2. Solana consistently processed thousands of TPS, with finality around 2.5 seconds, close to web standards. Sui went even further: with its object model and fast path optimization, it achieved sub-second confirmation. In practice, Sui averaged 350 TPS during peaks with 30 million daily transactions, but stress tests showed a ceiling above 120,000 TPS. This unused headroom means Sui can scale as its ecosystem grows. Ethereum remains the “value layer,” Solana the “performance layer,” and Sui is carving its path with both performance and developer-friendly design.
MARKET LANDSCAPE AND FUTURE OUTLOOK
The 2025 market began to look like a three-horse race between Ethereum, Solana, and Sui. Ethereum kept the throne of value and security, with the deepest liquidity, institutional adoption, and the most mature DeFi and NFT ecosystems. Solana drew millions of retail users with speed and low fees, becoming the top chain for everyday transactions. Sui, the newcomer, became the disruptor: explosive user growth, liquidity inflows, and developer momentum pushed it into the mainstream in just two years. Its August 13 milestone, briefly surpassing Solana in daily active addresses, was more than data — it symbolized a new order taking shape.
But the race is far from settled. Ethereum must improve scaling and UX to retain younger users. Solana must continue boosting stability and decentralization to erase old doubts. Sui must prove it is not just a one-time traffic story but a platform that can support lasting value. From ETF approvals to developer conferences, from stablecoin adoption to gaming launches, 2025 made one thing clear: blockchain is finally moving toward mass adoption. The contest among Sui, Solana, and Ethereum is not only about tech, but about ecosystem depth and long-term infrastructure for Web3. Who stands out in the next cycle may be answered in 2026 or beyond.
SECURITY AND STABILITY: THE FOUNDATION OF TRUST
In blockchain competition, security and stability are often overlooked but most crucial. Ethereum still leads here. Since the 2016 DAO event, it has had no major shutdowns, and with its shift to PoS, security improved further with over 500,000 validators making it the most decentralized and attack-resistant chain. Solana had a rocky path, suffering multiple outages in 2022, but after upgrades like QUIC networking and the Firedancer client, it had no major downtime in 2025, showing big progress. Sui is still in its testing phase. In late 2024, it had a short halt from a scheduling bug, but it was fixed quickly with no serious loss. In 2025, Sui has run smoothly with an increasing number of validators. With the Move language and object model, Sui offers strong contract safety, though its decentralization and resilience still need time. Overall, Ethereum shows “stability,” Solana shows “improvement,” and Sui shows “new promise.” For users and institutions, choosing a chain is not only about fees and speed but also about trust and confidence
