Sui Group pivots from token-holder to operating treasury, leaning on stablecoins and DeFi revenue Sui Group Holdings (SUIG) — the only Nasdaq-listed firm with an official tie to the Sui Foundation — is transforming from a token-accumulating treasury into an operating business that uses native stablecoins and DeFi revenue to drive shareholder yield, the company’s chief investment officer Steven Mackintosh told CoinDesk. A quick recap: the U.S.-based specialty finance firm, formerly Mill City Ventures, rebranded to Sui Group in 2025 and adopted a foundation-backed digital asset treasury (DAT) strategy centered on SUI, the Sui network’s native token. While it still advises and invests in public and private companies, Sui Group’s stated priority is clear — accumulate SUI and build recurring revenue streams inside the Sui ecosystem. What Sui Group holds and wants - Current SUI holdings: ~108 million tokens, roughly $160 million — just under 3% of circulating supply, per Mackintosh. - Near-term target: grow that stake to 5% of the circulating float, a milestone the firm sees as materially important. - SUI-per-share metric: increased from 1.14 to 1.34 (a benchmark similar to ether-per-share used by other treasury companies). Funding and risk management Sui Group completed a PIPE while SUI traded near $4.20 that valued the treasury at about $400–$450 million. The company raised roughly $450 million but deliberately held back about $60 million to manage market risk and avoid forced token sales during volatility. Its digital assets are custodied and managed by Galaxy Digital. From passive treasury to operating model Mackintosh said the firm is moving beyond buying and staking SUI to an active operating model. The linchpin is SuiUSDE — a native, yield-bearing stablecoin built in partnership with the Sui Foundation and Ethena, and among the first projects to white‑label Ethena’s technology on a non‑Ethereum network. SuiUSDE was undergoing testing and was expected to go live in February. Key mechanics and use cases - Fee flow: 90% of SuiUSDE fees will be returned to Sui Group Holdings and the Sui Foundation. Those proceeds can either be used to buy SUI in the open market or redeployed into Sui-native DeFi. - On‑ and off‑ramps inside Sui: SuiUSDE is expected to be used across order books and trading engines (DeepBook, Bluefin, Navi), on DEXs such as Cetus, and as collateral throughout the ecosystem. - Audience: the company hopes to attract the yield-seeking DeFi users that fueled Ethena’s growth on Ethereum, with discussions reportedly underway with protocols like Pendle. Context on Ethena Ethena is an Ethereum-based DeFi protocol that created a synthetic dollar (USDe) maintained by delta‑neutral hedging of crypto collateral and derivative positions instead of fiat reserves. Sui Group’s white-label approach ports that model to Sui. New revenue streams and partnerships Sui Group has also signed a revenue‑sharing deal with Bluefin, the leading perpetuals DEX on Sui, earning a fixed percentage of trading fees — a recurring revenue stream that Mackintosh called critical to converting the company into a true operating business. He added that two more ecosystem partnerships are in the pipeline. Tokenomics, yield and the upside case - Staking yield: SUI’s base staking yield is roughly 2.2%. - Token supply: Sui has a fixed 10 billion token supply and a fee‑burn mechanism that the company argues makes the network structurally deflationary, in contrast with inflationary models on some other chains. - Target effective yield: Mackintosh said if Sui Group can lift its effective yield to about 6% through operating revenues, SUI-per-share could grow substantially over the next five years, even before market price appreciation. Discipline amid a tough market Mackintosh contrasted Sui Group’s strategy with other DATs that have been forced to sell tokens or restructure after market downturns. Sui Group recently repurchased 8.8% of its own shares and still holds around $22 million in cash — a buffer Mackintosh says allows for patient capital deployment without “knee‑jerk” decisions. Why it matters Sui Group is attempting to give public-market investors a cleaner, revenue-backed way to gain economic exposure to the Sui ecosystem. By combining token accumulation with a yield-bearing, native stablecoin and fee-sharing DeFi deals, the company hopes to lock in recurring cash flow that can be funneled back into SUI buybacks or further ecosystem investment — a model that, if successful, could reshape how on‑chain treasuries operate in public markets. Quote in brief: Mackintosh summarized the thesis — performance will be correlated to the price of SUI, and the goal is to be “the most innovative DAT in the market” by embedding the company directly into Sui’s economy. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news