What Happened to Sui? Unlocks, Outages and Raoul Pal's Big Bet
Sui fell from about $5.35 to $0.64 while Raoul Pal kept buying. The unlocks, Cetus hack, outages and Phantom exit behind the drop, and what to ask next.
Key takeaways
- Raoul Pal says over 70% of his savings is in Sui. He also disclosed he has been on the Sui Foundation with locked tokens, and asked viewers not to copy his risk profile.
- Only about 41% of Sui's supply is circulating, according to the video, with unlocks running until 2030. A low float can magnify moves in both directions.
- The 2025 Cetus hack recovery, in which validators froze about $162 million of stolen funds, showed that a small group of validators can halt funds on chain.
- Network value locked, trading volume and fees all fell sharply from their peaks, and Phantom announced it would end Sui support on August 24.
- Raoul Pal's own test for any coin in a bear market: does the team have cash, is it investing, and is it building?
Sui was one of the strongest altcoins going into 2025. According to the video, it peaked around $5.35 in January 2025 and fell as low as $0.64 in August 2026. Then, in the week before the video, it rose about 40%. Through all of it, macro investor Raoul Pal has said he keeps more than 70% of his savings in the coin.
The video asks whether the bounce is the start of a recovery or money briefly passing through. It doesn’t answer that with a prediction. It lays out what drove the fall and the questions any holder can ask of Sui, or of any other altcoin.
What has Raoul Pal said about Sui?
Raoul Pal, a former Goldman Sachs executive who went on to co-run a global macro hedge fund and now runs Real Vision, has repeatedly said he is heavily overweight Sui.
- May 2025, with Sui around $3.49: he said more than 70% of his savings was in Sui, citing a Sui-versus-Solana chart that had broken out. In the same appearance, he said Sui would have to go through a bear market first.
- December 25, 2025, with Sui down about 60% to around $1.40: he said he hadn’t sold a single coin and had bought more three weeks earlier. He said a model he ran through ChatGPT, checked with Real Vision’s chief crypto analyst Jamie Coutts, showed Sui about 80% undervalued against Solana. The video notes he didn’t explain the model.
- September 15, 2026, on the Milk Road podcast: he said he remains vastly overweight Sui. His last purchases, about three months earlier, included Solana, Sui, Ethereum and Zcash.
Two disclosures matter here. Pal said himself that he has been on the Sui Foundation and holds locked tokens from it, and the host of the first show said Sui was a sponsor of the podcast. Pal also urged viewers not to copy his risk profile. The video’s point is that when someone with his background announces a 70% allocation, many people stop listening after the number.
Who backed Sui, and who sold?
Sui was built by Mysten Labs, founded by five former leads of Meta’s blockchain project. According to the video:
- 2021: a16z invested $36 million.
- 2022: FTX Ventures led a $300 million round at a valuation over $2 billion, before the network launched.
- Spring 2023: before launch, a community access program sold coins at about 3 cents.
- April 2024: Sui announced a partnership with Google Cloud.
- February 2026: the first spot Sui ETFs launched, followed by CME futures in May.
Early buyers at about 3 cents who sold near the $5.35 top could have made up to 178 times their money. The video argues that this is who was on the other side of late retail buyers. It also notes that for about 12 weeks in summer 2026, Sui ETFs saw steady buying while the price kept falling, which means more coins were being sold than bought.
A Nasdaq-listed company, Sui Group, raised $450 million to buy Sui, with the Sui Foundation investing alongside it. Its stock later fell until the company was worth less than the Sui it held. By the end of June it had about $3.1 million in cash and around $13 million in stablecoins, and its chief investment officer left in July.
Why does Sui’s low circulating supply matter?
According to the video, only about 41% of all Sui is on the market. The rest is locked and allocated, with releases scheduled through 2030. New coins arrive month after month regardless of demand.
A small free float, meaning the share of coins actually available to trade, makes price move more easily in both directions. Pal described this himself: a low float goes up a lot and goes down a lot.
Outages and the Cetus hack
Reliability problems hurt confidence further. The video lists:
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| November 2024 | Network stopped for about 2.5 hours, six weeks before the all-time high |
| May 2025 | Cetus, a major Sui exchange, hacked for about $223 million |
| January 2026 | Network froze for about six hours |
| May 2026 | Network went down three times in two days |
The Cetus recovery is the event the video emphasizes. Validators froze about $162 million of the stolen funds so it could be returned. That helped victims, but it showed the wider market that a small group of validators can stop funds on chain. After the May 2026 outages, the video says, the Sui team’s own report acknowledged it accepted the risk of shipping a fix it knew could halt the network again.
The on-chain numbers since the peak
The video cites these declines from their highs:
- Value locked on the network: from about $2.6 billion in October 2025 to around half a billion dollars
- Monthly trading volume: from about $22.2 billion to a little over $1 billion
- Monthly network fees: from about $24 million to under $4 million
On August 24, Phantom, one of crypto’s largest wallets, announced it was ending support for Sui. Both sides called it a joint decision without explaining why.
The recent bounce lifted value locked back above half a billion dollars, but the video says one strong week doesn’t settle the question.
Raoul Pal’s three questions for any coin
In the same early interview, Pal gave a test for how a project handles a bear market. The video suggests applying it to any altcoin you hold:
- Does the team have cash?
- Is it investing?
- Is it building?
For Sui, the video says the public numbers answer the first two in a worrying way: a treasury company down to about $3.1 million in cash, and monthly network fees down from about $24 million to under $4 million. Whether the team is still building is the one question outsiders can’t fully see.
Pal closed the podcast with a principle the video endorses: be actively paranoid that your allocation could destroy your wealth or underperform, and keep asking, “Am I wrong?”
What to watch next
The video doesn’t claim to know what Sui does in the next six months. The measurable signals are the same ones that tracked its decline: value locked, trading volume and fees, the unlock calendar, whether outages recur and whether more wallets or partners leave. A rising price on its own, the video notes, doesn’t make a project fundamentally strong.
Frequently asked questions
Why did Sui crash?
The video points to several factors: early investors who bought far below later prices, a small circulating supply with ongoing unlocks, the Cetus hack and validator freeze in May 2025, several network outages, falling on-chain activity and Phantom's decision to drop support. It frames these as contributing causes rather than a single explanation.
Is Raoul Pal still buying Sui?
On September 15, Raoul Pal said on the Milk Road podcast that he remains vastly overweight Sui. He said his last purchases, about three months earlier, included Solana, Sui, Ethereum and Zcash. He has also disclosed holding locked tokens from his role on the Sui Foundation.
What happened in the Cetus hack?
In May 2025, Cetus, one of the largest exchanges on Sui, was hacked for about $223 million. Validators froze around $162 million of the stolen funds so it could be returned, which the video says raised concerns about how much control validators have.
How much Sui is in circulation?
According to the video, about 41% of all Sui that will ever exist is on the market. The rest is locked and scheduled to be released gradually through 2030.
Education and commentary only, not financial advice. Crypto is volatile and you can lose money. Do your own research and speak to a qualified advisor before making investment decisions. Figures and quotes are as reported in the video on September 28, 2026 and may have changed since.
