Sui Name Service (NS) has skyrocketed, is the project potential exploded or is it a flash in the pan?

Author: Luke, Mars Finance

introduction

The NS token soared 103% in just one hour, with the price breaking through 0.43 USDT and then slightly lowered and is currently at 0.38 USDT. This wave of increase has attracted widespread attention and surprised many retail investors: Why did a blockchain domain name token that was originally unknown suddenly become the focus of the market? This article will conduct in-depth analysis of NS's technical advantages and economic models, compare Ethereum Name Service (ENS), and finally discuss whether the blockchain domain name track has investment potential.

The surge caused by the giant whale liquidation

The surge in NS is not entirely driven by the token economic model, but is caused by the giant whale's capital operation, which is quite similar to the past GameStop incident. At that time, the giant whale quickly created a short-term market boom by replenishing positions and airdropping positions.

A giant whale invested funds on the Navi platform at the beginning of 2025 and used NS as loan collateral, while conducting short operations on the exchange. Ju Jing first borrowed NS and sold short, then used the profits to repay the loan and re-mortgaged NS, forming a continuous revolving capital operation. However, the space for such operations has gradually dried up. If other investors start to withdraw their NS on Navi, the Giant Whale's short positions may experience rapid liquidation.

According to on-chain data, the surge on February 20 was caused by a group of giant whales repurchasing 75,000 NS per minute, trying to fill short positions and repay loans, which triggered a drastic price fluctuation. In this process, the joint counterattack of retail investors played a role in fueling the fire, similar to the "squeezing" effect in the stock market, causing the price to soar to 0.43 USDT at one point.

Although this situation seems to give retail investors a chance to make short-term profits, it also hides greater risks. Giant Whale's replenishment and airdrop behavior may form an unstable capital cycle in the market. If retail investors and investors withdraw their NS one after another, Giant Whale's short positions may be quickly liquidated, thereby aggravating price fluctuations. Therefore, this type of market surge is both an opportunity and a bubble.

What is NS? Blockchain domain name service in the Sui ecosystem

Sui Name Service (NS) is a core technology in the Sui ecosystem, which provides users with a simple and easy-to-remember blockchain address solution. In the blockchain world, long list of addresses are often a headache, and the goal of NS is to make these complex addresses more concise and easy to identify. For example, the address "0xd77861e972e02feb0927611eb934b67a1f9e60782e36cdef61f6779919b6a8cd" on Sui may confuse you, but through NS you can convert it to a short identifier like "@john" or "john.sui", similar to when you create a user on social media It's just that it's completely decentralized and runs on the Sui blockchain.

Developed by the Mysten Labs team, NS leverages the high-performance architecture of Sui blockchain to provide speeds of up to 100,000 transactions per second, giving it the ability to handle large numbers of transactions. Users can register a domain name only for about 20 SUI (equivalent to a few dollars), and the V2 upgrade in June 2024 also added a subdomain feature, making naming more flexible, similar to "@john.family". The core mission of NS is to provide Web3 with a decentralized "domain name yellow page" to provide more convenient digital identity and asset management for the blockchain world.

NS vs. ENS: The rookie vs. Big Brother

To understand the potential of NS, we might as well compare it with ENS, a veteran giant in the blockchain domain name field. ENS, as a core project in the Ethereum ecosystem, has firmly become the overlord of the domain name market as early as 2021. It provides users with a simple address like "vitalik.eth". With Ethereum's huge ecosystem and first-mover advantage, ENS has become the most popular domain name service in the blockchain world. ENS has registered more than 2.6 million domain names so far, with prices soaring from the original $43 to $85.69 in November 2021, and then pulled back to $6.7 due to a bear market (October 2023), and now it has recovered in the $25-35 range. .

But ENS also faces some challenges. The most significant shortcoming is the high Gas fee, which often costs $5 to $640 per year for domain registration, while short domain names are particularly expensive, often requiring 300 ETH (hundreds of thousands of dollars). In addition, due to Ethereum's transaction speed and handling fee issues, the registration and use cost of ENS is relatively high for ordinary users.

Unlike ENS, NS runs on the Sui blockchain and has significant advantages. Sui is known for its high-performance trading architecture, with transaction speeds that can easily reach 100,000 transactions per second, which gives NS a huge advantage in cost and efficiency. NS registers a domain name similar to "@john" for only a few dollars, and its Gas fee is almost negligible. Thanks to the rapid development of the Sui ecosystem and its low-cost advantages, NS is likely to achieve rapid growth in emerging markets.

However, the NS ecosystem is not as mature as ENS, and its user base and market size are far behind ENS. Retail investors need to remain patient and wait for their gradual development in the ecosystem.

Domain track: Web3's "ID card craze", potential and risk coexist

Blockchain domain names are rapidly becoming one of the infrastructures of the Web3 ecosystem, similar to the domain name system (DNS) in the traditional Internet. It not only simplifies complex blockchain addresses, but also provides a decentralized, verifiable identity system for decentralized applications (DApps), NFTs and digital assets. Just as .com domain names became scarce assets of the Internet in the 1990s, blockchain domain names may become "digital ID cards" in the Web3 field. With the surge in the number of Web3 users, the market demand for blockchain domain names will also rise.

In this field, NS and ENS represent two different competitive strategies. ENS, as a leader in the Ethereum ecosystem, has become the "big brother" of blockchain domain names with its strong ecosystem and first-mover advantage. It currently registers over 2.6 million domain names and firmly locks in the premium market with its integrated wallet, DApp and NFT uses. Despite this, ENS's high Gas fees and high registration costs are still its main shortcomings, especially for ordinary users, the domain name registration cost is higher.

In contrast, NS has demonstrated strong competitiveness in the market by relying on the high performance and low cost advantages of Sui blockchain. Sui blockchain transactions are extremely fast, and the fee for registering a domain name is only a few dollars, and the fee for Gas is almost negligible, making it extremely attractive in emerging markets. However, NS is still in its early stages of development, with the ecosystem and user base far less than ENS, and investors need to be cautious.

Overall, although the market has huge potential, speculative behavior and regulatory changes may still pose risks to investors. Despite this, blockchain domain names are still an important cornerstone of the Web3 ecosystem. Whoever can accurately grasp market demand will make a profit in this track.

Conclusion: This surge is only a temporary opportunity, and the risks

still exist

Although NS's short-term surge has attracted high market attention, the price surge this time may be due to short-term fluctuations caused by the clearing of giant whale airdrop positions. Similar to the "squeezing effect" in the stock market, Giant Whale carried out large-scale repurchase in order to fill short positions. Although it pushed up the price, this volatility is likely to be temporary and cannot be sustained. Although retail investors have achieved high returns in the short term, the risks behind this surge cannot be ignored.

With fluctuations in market sentiment and limited circulation, NS may face the risk of a price pullback, especially when the giant whale operation is over, market support may weaken. Therefore, although NS has potential in the Sui ecosystem, investors must be cautious and not be induced by short-term price fluctuations. For investors who want to hold for a long time, they should pay close attention to the long-term development, technological progress and ecological construction of the project, rather than relying solely on short-term market popularity.

In the crypto market, opportunities and risks always coexist, and investors need to make rational judgments and manage risks well. The future of NS is still full of uncertainty, and this surge is just a brief theater in the crypto market and may not be able to continue. Therefore, it is recommended that retail investors stay awake when participating and avoid blindly chasing high prices to avoid falling into the risks brought by short-term bubbles.