Sui Group charts new course for crypto treasuries with stablecoins and DeFi

Sui Group Holdings (SUIG), the only Nasdaq-listed company with an official relationship with the Sui Foundation, is positioning itself to become the most economically important player in the blockchain’s ecosystem, according to Stephen Mackintosh, the company’s chief investment officer.

Formerly known as Mill City Ventures, the U.S.-based specialty finance firm rebranded to Sui Group Holdings in 2025 as it pivoted toward a foundation-backed digital asset treasury (DAT) strategy centered on SUI, the native token of the Sui network.

While the company continues to invest in and advise public and private companies, Mackintosh said its priority is now clear: accumulating SUI and building infrastructure that generates recurring yield for shareholders.

“Our performance is always going to be correlated to the price of SUI,” Mackintosh told CoinDesk in an interview. “The goal is to be the most innovative DAT in the market by embedding ourselves directly into the Sui ecosystem.”

Sui Group currently holds about 108 million SUI tokens, worth roughly $160 million, representing just under 3% of the circulating supply, according to Mackintosh. The company’s near-term goal is to increase that stake to 5% of the circulating float, which he described as a really important milestone.

The firm has already grown its SUI per share metric, a benchmark similar to ether-per-share used by Ethereum-focused treasury companies, from 1.14 to 1.34, Mackintosh said.

In a PIPE (private investment in public equity) deal completed when SUI traded near $4.20, the treasury was valued at roughly $400–450 million. Sui Group raised about $450 million, intentionally withholding around $60 million to manage market risk, a move Mackintosh said helped avoid forced token sales during periods of volatility.

Sui Group’s digital assets are custodied and managed by Galaxy Digital (GLXY), its official asset manager.

Mackintosh said the company is now moving beyond buying and staking SUI into a full operating model.

The centerpiece is SuiUSDE, a native, yield-bearing stablecoin built in partnership with the Sui Foundation and Ethena, expected to go live in February following ongoing testing. Sui Group is among the first to white-label Ethena’s technology on a non-Ethereum network.

“Wall Street understands stablecoins far better than altcoins,” Mackintosh said. “This is an opportunity to capture that premium inside a public equity.”

Under the structure, 90% of fees generated by SuiUSDE will flow back to Sui Group Holdings and the Sui Foundation, either to buy back SUI in the open market or to be redeployed into Sui-native DeFi. The stablecoin is expected to be used across DeepBook, Bluefin, Navi and decentralized exchanges (DEXs) such as Cetus, as well as serve as collateral throughout the ecosystem.

Mackintosh said the goal is to attract the yield-hungry DeFi users that powered Ethena’s growth on Ethereum and bring that energy to Sui, with discussions ongoing with players like Pendle.

Ethena is a DeFi protocol on Ethereum focused on creating a crypto-native synthetic dollar and financial infrastructure that operates independently of traditional banking systems. Its flagship product is USDe, a synthetic dollar designed to maintain a stable 1:1 peg to the U.S. dollar using delta-neutral hedging of crypto collateral combined with derivative positions rather than relying on fiat reserves held in banks.

Sui Group has also entered into a revenue-sharing agreement with Bluefin, the leading perpetual futures DEX on Sui. The company receives a fixed percentage of trading fees, adding a recurring revenue stream to its DAT.

“Perps are the killer use case in crypto,” Mackintosh said. “We’ve gone from a company that buys and stakes SUI to an operating business that owns a stablecoin and earns revenue from a perps DEX.”

Two additional ecosystem deals are in the pipeline, he added.

While SUI’s base staking yield is around 2.2%, Mackintosh said the network’s fixed 10 billion token supply and fee-burn mechanism make it structurally deflationary, unlike inflationary networks such as Solana and Ethereum.

If Sui Group can push its effective yield to around 6% through operating revenues, Mackintosh said he believes SUI per share could grow materially over the next five years, even before factoring in price appreciation.

“The combination of deflation and higher yield gives us a very compelling long-term setup,” he said.

Mackintosh contrasted Sui Group’s approach with other DATs that have struggled amid volatility, forced token sales and convertible debt structures.

In the recent market downturn, digital asset treasury companies, publicly traded firms that build core business models around holding large crypto balances, came under sustained pressure that forced some to sell down parts of their crypto stacks and rethink their strategies.

Sui Group recently bought back 8.8% of its own shares and still holds about $22 million in cash, which Mackintosh said provides flexibility without forcing knee-jerk decisions.

“We’ve been patient, we’ve used cash effectively and we haven’t chased financial engineering,” he said. “That discipline matters in this market.”

Looking ahead to 2026, Mackintosh said the firm’s focus remains singular: making Sui Group Holdings the central economic actor in the Sui ecosystem and giving public-market investors a cleaner way to access its growth.

Read more: Staking goes mainstream: what 2026 could look like for ether investors