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 ecosystem, according to Steven Mackintosh, the company’s chief investment officer.
Formerly known as Mill City Ventures, the US-based specialist finance firm rebranded as Sui Group Holdings in 2025 as it pivoted towards a foundation-backed digital asset treasury (DAT) strategy centered on SUI, the original symbol 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 returns for shareholders.
“Our performance will always be correlated to the price of SUI,” Mackintosh told CoinDesk in an interview. “The goal is to be the most innovative DAT on the market by integrating directly into the Sui ecosystem.”
Expansion of the SUI fund
The Sui Group currently holds about 108 million SUI tokens, worth about $160 million, representing just under 3% of the circulating supply, according to Mackintosh. The company’s short-term goal is to increase this share 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 was trading near $4.20, the treasury was valued at around $400-450 million. Sui Group raised about $450 million, deliberately withholding about $60 million to manage market risk, a move Mackintosh said helped avoid forced sales of tokens during periods of volatility.
Sui Group’s digital assets are held and managed by Galaxy Digital (GLXY), its official asset manager.
From treasury to operating business
Mackintosh said the company is now moving beyond buying and betting SUI to a full operating model.
The centerpiece is SuiUSDE, a native, return-bearing stablecoin built in collaboration with the Sui Foundation and Athena, expected to go live in February after ongoing testing. Sui Group is among the first to white label Athena’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 in a public stock.”
Under the structure, 90% of fees generated by SuiUSDE will flow back to Sui Group Holdings and Sui Foundation, either to buy back SUI on the open market or to be redeployed to 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 dividend-hungry DeFi users that fueled Athena’s growth on Ethereum and bring that energy to Sui, with discussions underway with players like Pendle.
Athena is a DeFi protocol on Ethereum focused on creating a crypto-native synthetic dollar and financial infrastructure that works independently of traditional banking systems. Its flagship product is USDe, a synthetic dollar designed to maintain a stable 1:1 peg to the US dollar using delta-neutral crypto-security hedging combined with derivative positions instead of relying on fiat reserves in banks.
DeFi revenue and dividend ambitions
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 company that owns a stablecoin and earns revenue from a perps DEX.”
Two more ecosystem deals are in the pipeline, he added.
While SUI’s base stake 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 like Solana and Ethereum.
If Sui Group can push its effective dividend to about 6% through operating income, Mackintosh said he believes SUI per share could grow substantially over the next five years, even before accounting for price appreciation.
“The combination of deflation and higher yields gives us a very compelling long-term setup,” he said.
Capital discipline and market volatility
Mackintosh contrasted Sui Group’s approach with other DATs that have struggled amid volatility, foreclosures and convertible debt structures.
In the recent market downturn, companies in the financial management of digital assets, listed companies that build core business models around holding large crypto balances, came under sustained pressure, forcing 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 has about $22 million in cash, which Mackintosh said provides flexibility without forcing knee-jerk decisions.
“We’ve been patient, we’ve used cash efficiently 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: to make Sui Group Holdings the central economic player in the Sui ecosystem and provide public market investors with a cleaner way to access its growth.
Read more: Staking goes mainstream: what 2026 could look like for ether investors
