Key Highlights
- While the growth in DeFi activities, Solana, and Sui are rapidly growing, with trends like memecoins, which can spark a rally in their native tokens
- Both blockchains are continuously going through new developments to scale their networks
- The launch of SOL ETFs and SUI ETFs has opened the door for institutional investments
While developers are focusing on the development of Layer 2 solutions, Layer 1 chains are gradually climbing the ladder. While Ethereum is still holding the throne of the biggest blockchains, Solana and Sui are two leading contenders for high performance.
Solana has a market capitalization of approximately around $47 billion, and it is trading at around $75. On the other hand, Sui is holding $3.4 billion in market capitalization while it is trading at around $0.88, according to CoinMarketCap. These networks are known for instant transaction finality and the ability to handle thousands of transactions per second.
Solana has been a popular blockchain for a very long time. The network recently hit a record 148 million non-vote transactions in a single day, thanks to retail trading, a memecoin trend, and DeFi activities. The surge in activities helped the network to generate more than $2.3 billion in application revenue in 2025. The raw transaction volume on Solana has reached over 100 million.
On the other hand, Sui is still in its early phase and cycle. It is slowly building a loyal user base through incentives and “wealth effects.” Mysten Labs is focusing on creating real financial opportunities for early users with projects like Deepbook, SuiNS, and the Walrus storage protocol.
These applications have helped the network to deliver major airdrops, sometimes worth millions of dollars in total. This helped the chain to create a community that feels invested in the progress of the chain. In DeFi, Sui is now holding around $17.8 billion in total value locked.
Solana vs Sui: Technical Comparison
Solana is using a unique mechanism called Proof-of-History. It is a cryptographic clock, alongside Tower BFT consensus, to order transactions before validators even agree on them. This mechanism has helped the network to achieve real-world throughput that recently hit a record 148 million non-vote transactions in a single day on January 30.
Apart from this, Solana is also preparing for new upgrades in 2026. Alpenglow is expected to boost transaction finality, while Firedancer, which is a third-party validator client, is expected to achieve 1 million in TPS (transactions per second). These upgrades will make it a perfect choice for payments and trading applications.
On the other hand, Sui is also taking a unique approach. Sui uses an object-centric data model, where every asset is treated as a unique object rather than entries on a global ledger. Mysticeti consensus is known for faster execution, where transactions that do not depend on each other can be processed at the same time.
Sui has achieved 866 transactions per second on-chain. The network has also tested its peaks go above 120,000 TPS with sub-second finality. There is a feature called Programmable Transaction Blocks that allows up to 1,024 actions in a single network call. It is making Sui a perfect fit for complex DeFi operations and gaming applications where many steps must happen at once.
The network is also going to get privacy features, which will roll out in 2026. This will provide Sui a protocol-level advantage that Solana does not provide.
Statistics Tells Who Leads The Ground
(Source: DefiLIama)
According to DefiLIama, Solana is holding $6.328 billion in total DeFi value locked. While the cryptocurrency is also facing a downward trend in the ongoing turmoil in the crypto market, SOL has shown some resilience. Its Stablecoin market cap currently revolves around $15.26 billion. Apart from this, on the last day, Solana DEXs processed $1.456 billion in volume, while perpetuals trading added another $466.9 million.
The biggest protocol on the blockchain, Jupiter, has $1.99 billion in TVL. The number of active addresses is revolving around 2.3 million daily, though January peaks revolve around 5 million.
(Source: DefiLIama)
Sui has $552 million in TVL, with stablecoins total $564.76 million. Apart from this, daily DEX volume also reached above $56.59 million. According to DefiLIama, perpetual volume has reached above $189.69 million with 8.63% over the week.
Solana is leading the real-world assets (RWAs) sector, where Sui is still juggling to make space. According to on-chain data, real-world on Solana recently soared above $1.66 billion.
Solana Wins Memecoin Trend
Pump.fun is constantly deployed between 30,000 and 37,000 new tokens daily during surges. It generates record venues, including $14 million in a single January session, and drives billions in DEX volume. PumpSwap recently hit $1.28 billion in 24-hour trading, while cumulative platform volume now soared to $176 billion.
Sui is also getting impressive traction in the memecoin sector. According to the data, the total Sui meme market cap is revolving around $20 million, led by projects like BEEG.
Summing Up
From the current market price, it requires Solana to surge over $451 billion in market capitalization for a 10x gain. To do this, it will require Solana to capture a major share of Ethereum’s DeFi sector. But, Solana can do this during the bull cycle as it is continuously getting mainstream adoption through products like SOL ETFs.
At the same time, Sui will need to reach $34.5 billion in market capitalization to gain 10x. This is still below Solana’s current valuation and comparable to mid-tier Layer-1s from prior cycles. Also, recently, Canary Capital and Grayscale have launched the first Spot SUI ETFs with 7% Staking Yields.
So, all in all, Solana and Sui both can manage to grow 10 times if the market gains momentum again.
Also Read: Best Stablecoin Strategies To Hedge in 2026 Crypto Bear Market
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