Sui's layer-1 blockchain has once again experienced a major network outage, drawing comparisons to the downtime issues that once plagued rival Solana. The disruption, described as a "network stall," was first identified and investigated on Thursday morning and resulted in more than five hours of significant downtime as the Sui team worked toward a resolution.
"Sui Mainnet is currently experiencing a network stall," the blockchain announced on X around 10:30 a.m. ET. "Be aware that transactions may be paused at this time. Updates will be shared as soon as they are available."
An update posted to the Sui network status page at 3:40 p.m. ET confirmed that a "fix is rolling out to validators." However, as of the time of writing, the fix had not yet been fully implemented, according to the blockchain's status page.
This latest incident comes just five months after a similar event struck the layer-1 network's mainnet in January, which caused more than six hours of downtime. Prior to that, the network also dealt with a significant validator issue in 2024 that prevented transactions from being processed.
The repeated outages are notable for a blockchain that was specifically built to compete with other high-speed layer-1 networks. Sui's engineers did identify the root cause of the issue shortly after beginning their investigation, though the rollout of a complete fix took several hours.
Amid the downtime, Sui's native token, SUI, appeared to feel some pressure from the event, declining 5.4% over the prior 24 hours to trade at $0.92 — a steeper drop than those seen in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other leading cryptocurrencies during the same period. The token had reached a new all-time high of $5.35 in January 2025, but has since fallen more than 82% from that peak.
Sui was launched in 2023 and was developed by Mysten Labs, a company that spun out of Meta's Diem project. The network previously raised $300 million in a Series B funding round in 2022, which valued it at $2 billion.
Why it matters
Sui was built explicitly to compete with high-speed layer-1 networks on performance and reliability — repeated outages directly undercut that positioning, since uptime is a core expectation for any network seeking to attract developers and users away from established alternatives.
When a layer-1 blockchain stalls, decentralized applications and users that depend on continuous transaction finality are left unable to execute trades, transfers, or contract interactions for the duration of the outage, making downtime a tangible operational risk for anyone building on or using the network.
