• SUI has been one of the best performers in the past week, gaining 18% as open interest on the derivatives markets hit a new all-time high of $295 million.
• The network became an official partner of the world’s largest martial arts organization, One Championship,  and is now integrating USDC stablecoin to boost liquidity.

It has been an exciting start to the week for Sui, the blockchain network whose object-centric data model and new Move programming language has made it a darling for developers. The network’s native token, SUI, has been attracting the interest of derivatives traders who set a new record for open interest and has now flipped Aptos to rank 27th on the charts.

SUI trades at $1.09, gaining less than 1% in the past day. However, over the past week, it has been the second-best performing crypto among the top 100 coins, only ranking behind Nervos Network, which has had an unprecedented run in the past few days.

SUI gained 18.3% in the past week, hitting a weekly high of $1.13, its highest price since early June. This surge enabled the token to flip Aptos, another Layer 1 blockchain that relies on the Move programming language for efficiency and scalability.

The token’s performance has captured the interest of traders. In the spot market, its volume has ranged around $500 million daily for the past week, a massive improvement from an average of $200 million earlier in the month.

The derivates market has just been as explosive for SUI. According to data from CoinGlass, open interest in the futures market for SUI hit an all-time high on Monday at $295 million, eclipsing the previous record of $289 million. In derivatives, open interest shows the volume of unfilled orders and is regarded as one of the best indicators of traders’ interest in an asset.

Other Sui metrics have also noted an increase in the past month, including the volume of its decentralized exchanges and the total value locked, which, at $710 million, is now 20% higher for the month.

Sui Welcomes USDC

The developments continued today for Sui, with the network revealing in a press release today that it’s set to integrate native USDC to boost liquidity for the network’s users.

The project noted:

Sui will collaborate with ecosystem apps to transition liquidity from bridged USDC to native USDC gradually, while Wormhole’s Portal bridge will continue operating as usual.

To accommodate the newly available native USDC, the existing version of the stablecoin, offered via Wormhole bridge, will be renamed wUSDC.

The integration of the world’s second-largest stablecoin will be a big boost for Sui, enabling developers to offer better and more scalable applications that leverage the stablecoin. It also eliminates risk for users as they no longer need to rely on the Ethereum-bridged version of the stablecoin.

Additionally, USDC issuer Circle pledged to offer assistance to the Sui ecosystem to “deliver blockchain-based utility and contribute to efficient payment experiences on Sui and across other ecosystems.”