One observer suggested that Sui Foundation was selling SUI tokens from staking that were supposed to be locked. The project teams have denied this, but there is a discrepancy between the number of tokens announced as being in circulation and the actual number staked on the network
Sui Foundation denies selling locked staking rewards
On Tuesday, an observer developed a Twitter thread in which he exposes transactions on the part of Sui Foundation that he says suggest that supposedly locked staking rewards are being sold on Binance:
Exclusive new research on SUI:
Intentionally misrepresented emissions and proof the team themselves are dumping rewards from *locked* and *non-circulating* staked SUI onto Binance. (1/12) pic.twitter.com/jYRyeTFY56
– DeFi^2 (@DefiSquared) June 27, 2023
In his presentation, the interested party considers that there are inconsistencies between the tokenomics initially announced and the actual evolution of the supply in circulation. He claimed that token prices were being inflated by 20% a month.
However, these claims have been denied by Sui Foundation, which maintains that the number of tokens is evolving in line with what is specified in the tokenomics:
The purpose of this communication is to share information regarding the tokenomics of the Sui Network including the SUI token supply and certain distributions of SUI tokens. Here’s what you need to know:
– Sui Foundation (@SuiFoundation) June 27, 2023
For example, the project teams say that no rewards that are supposed to be locked are being sold:
“The Sui Foundation has not sold any staking rewards or any other staked SUI tokens that are locked and not circulating on Binance or otherwise. All allocations of insider tokens remain subject to and compliant with their locks and other transfer restrictions. “
The inconsistency between circulating tokens and staking
Despite Sui Foundation’s denial, there is indeed an inconsistency between the number of tokens in circulation and the number of SUIs staked on the network to secure it. We highlighted this inconsistency last month in an analysis of blockchain activity.
At the time of writing, CoinGecko reports just over 528 million SUIs in circulation, while CoinMarketCap reports 604 million. However, blockchain explorers Suiscan and Sui Explorer both indicate that 7.41 billion tokens are stored on the network’s various validators.
So, even if a large proportion of these tokens are locked, it is worth asking whether it might not be more logical to calculate SUI’s capitalisation on the basis of the existing quantity, rather than the quantity available on the market.
If this were the case, its capitalisation would be $5.18 billion, which would put the token in 14th place. As for the price of the asset, it is currently trading at around $0.7.
