Sui slides 19% weekly after 3 outages and 23.78M unlock

Three mainnet halts in 48 hours and a 23.78 million token unlock pushed SUI below $0.91 for the first time since the outage sequence began.

SUI fell to $0.9035 as of May 30, extending its weekly decline to 19% after three mainnet outages in 48 hours compounded by a scheduled token unlock on May 31.

"The third halt was triggered during the rollout of yesterday's long-term fix — the randomness initialization at epoch start failed because it required a higher quorum threshold than consensus," the Sui team said on X. A detailed incident review is forthcoming from Mysten Labs.

The cascade began May 28 when a bug in the v1.72 software upgrade — which introduced address balances and free gas charging for stablecoin transactions — halted block production for six hours. An interim fix restored the network but carried a known low-probability risk of another stall. That risk materialized May 29, triggering a second halt. The long-term patch deployed to address both issues then caused a third outage May 30 at approximately 20:30 UTC when an epoch transition bug froze user transactions. CoinGlass data confirmed $1.88 million in long positions were liquidated during the third event alone.

The outages coincide with a 23.78 million SUI token unlock scheduled for May 31, adding sell-side pressure to a token already testing critical support. SUI's next support sits at $0.8785, with a breakdown below $0.8501 opening the path toward $0.80, according to CoinCodex pivot point data. The CME Group launched SUI futures on May 29, but the timing of the disruptions may dampen institutional appetite for the regulated derivatives product.

Three outages, one root cause

All three halts trace to the same v1.72 release. The gas charging logic change triggered the first crash. The interim fix for that crash introduced a latent epoch-transition bug. The long-term fix for both issues failed when the randomness initialization process at epoch start could not reach quorum. Validators deployed a third fix addressing the epoch bug, and the network resumed block production. User funds remained safe across all three events, the team confirmed.

The pattern points to a gap in pre-deployment testing, specifically around how new code interacts with epoch boundaries and randomness initialization — a concern that extends beyond this single incident to every future Sui upgrade.

23.78M unlock adds to supply pressure

The token unlock represents approximately 0.6% of SUI's circulating supply of 3.95 billion tokens, according to token unlock data. While the relative size is modest, the timing compounds existing bearish pressure from the outages. SUI's relative strength index stands at 38.37, approaching oversold territory, per CoinCodex.

What to watch

The full incident review from Mysten Labs will be the key document for assessing whether Sui's deployment process needs structural changes. For traders, the immediate focus is whether SUI can hold support at $0.8785 through the unlock event. A recovery above $0.9562 would signal that the worst of the selling is behind the token.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.