NEAR Outpaces Sui on Market Cap Despite Lower DeFi Metrics
NEAR Protocol (NEAR)
Editor:
Eugene Serbin
nulltx.com reports that NEAR commands a $1.8 billion larger market cap than Sui, despite Sui leading in key usage metrics. NEAR trades at $5.02 with a market cap of $6.548 billion, while Sui sits at $1.15 with a market cap of $4.72 billion. Sui holds $542.11 million in TVL compared to NEAR's $240.12 million, and processes 127,942 active addresses against NEAR's 63,589.
Daily DEX volume on Sui reached $83.56 million, nearly 2.7 times NEAR's $36.56 million. Sui also recorded 31.58 million transactions versus NEAR's 1.22 million, with a stablecoin base of $481 million against $85.81 million. The valuation gap stems from supply differences, as only 41% of Sui's tokens are circulating.
On a fully diluted basis, Sui is valued at $11.79 billion, roughly 1.8 times NEAR's $6.653 billion. The article suggests NEAR's premium reflects momentum from protocols like NEAR Intents, Rhea Finance, and Meta Pool. However, NEAR's 7-day DEX volume dropped 67.52% week-on-week, and it generated just $8,274 in chain fees over 24 hours. Sui's TVL is currently $542 million, down from its October 2025 peak of $2.6 billion.
How the market reacted
Whalio's own Binance spot order flow for NEAR, measured when this story was written up on 28 September 2026. Not the outlet's figures.
NEAR spot data shows a buy ratio of 50.5% over the last hour and 48.6% over four hours, compared to 51.5% over the last day. The one-hour volume delta was positive at $72,493, while the four-hour delta turned negative at -$1,169,400. Over 24 hours, the volume delta recovered to +$6,056,017, though cumulative buying pressure ended with a CVD of -$11,250,496. Net buying occurred in only 7 of the last 24 hours, indicating inconsistent accumulation. The buy ratio measures the proportion of volume driven by buyers versus sellers, while the volume delta tracks the net value of those trades. Short-term buying pressure appears to be fading relative to the daily average.
The latest daily buy ratio of 50.8% sits at the 68th percentile of the last 323 days, against a median of 49.7% - ordinary for this coin.
Was that an ordinary day?
The same Binance spot measurements for NEAR, averaged over the days leading up to the story.
Over the preceding week, the average buy ratio was 51.1%, with the latest day showing a slight increase of 0.3 points. Spot volume for the day was 0.70 times the weekly average, indicating lighter trading activity. Net buying was recorded on 5 of the 7 days, with a total volume delta of +$52,501,295. The price rose 29.3% over eight days, suggesting strong recent momentum despite today's lower volume. This represents an ordinary day for accumulation but below average volume intensity.