Solana vs Ethereum: how Sui's supply changes the comparison

I find Sui's supply schedule more useful to this comparison than the promise of bigger gains from a smaller token. Jake Gordon Crypto prefers Ethereum, places Solana in the middle and questions whether Sui offers enough upside for its additional uncertainty. Market size helps explain that ranking, but it cannot establish which token will deliver the best return.

Solana vs Ethereum through an investor's lens

The creator's stated spot Ethereum position is about $151k, compared with about $29,000 in Solana. Those figures exclude his DeFi portfolios. Spot positions are assets held directly; DeFi, or decentralized finance, adds exposure through blockchain-based financial applications such as trading and lending.

His Ethereum preference has a personal history. It was the first altcoin, a cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin, he bought after Bitcoin in 2020. He says he subsequently lost everything and bought Ethereum again. That familiarity helps explain his confidence, though it does not establish that Ethereum will outperform.

I read the position sizes as evidence of exposure and conviction. Earlier purchases, accumulated gains and familiarity with an ecosystem can all produce a larger holding. None independently measures an asset's future return.

The creator had expected Ethereum to beat Bitcoin's returns in the 2025 run. In his account, Bitcoin recovered from 16k and passed its previous 69k bull-market high, while Ethereum failed to deliver the comparable breakout he wanted. He makes a similar criticism of Solana: it approached or briefly exceeded its previous high, depending on how the chart's price spikes are measured, without decisively surpassing the 2021 run.

Those judgments use a different standard from recovery off a low. A token can rebound strongly without substantially exceeding an earlier peak. The comparison also mixes expectations about a network's longevity with expectations about its token's percentage gains. I would keep those questions separate: a familiar project can survive while disappointing investors who expected faster appreciation.

What market size can and cannot tell you

Market capitalization multiplies the token price by its circulating supply. It gives a rough measure of market value, not software quality or the usefulness of applications. Here, the creator uses it to judge potential room for growth.

The figures cited or displayed put Ethereum well above Solana, with Sui much smaller than either. The table also includes the quoted recent returns.

The creator expects Solana's smaller capitalization to allow greater percentage upside than Ethereum's. His expectation for Sui follows the same reasoning: success could produce gains exceeding both larger assets. Neither outcome follows automatically from the starting valuation.

I see market size as a question about room to grow, rather than an obligation to outperform. Demand still has to appear. A smaller project can lose attention or face expanding supply without closing the gap with a larger competitor.

Market capitalization is not cash sitting inside a token. Trading determines prices, and a price change alters the calculated value of the circulating supply. Comparing capitalizations therefore cannot tell you exactly how much new buying a particular valuation would require.

Ethereum is the creator's established option, Solana his compromise between familiarity and upside, and Sui his higher-risk growth candidate. Those are his preferences, not permanent risk labels. Price, demand and supply changes can alter the comparison.

Compare the rebound with the damage

The recent gains in the table are close enough to challenge a simple smaller-is-better argument. The creator considers them strong, but expected Sui to lead by more given the additional risk he associates with it.

Over the last 1 year, he puts Ethereum down 34% and Sui down 60%, with Bitcoin down 25%. He describes Solana as having suffered more than Ethereum. The comparison gives no precise annual figure for Solana.

I find the gap between Sui's modest lead in the rebound and its larger annual decline more revealing than either window alone. It does not establish that Sui is a poor investment, but selecting only the recent gains would omit much of the price history being discussed.

Each measurement window starts at a different price, so changing the window can change the winner. Gains and losses also use changing bases: after a large fall, a proportionately larger recovery is needed to regain the starting price. I would compare the same dates and keep those starting prices visible.

The creator calls this a bear market, a period of broadly falling prices, while acknowledging uncertainty about Bitcoin's position. That interpretation cannot establish when the decline ends or whether a rebound becomes a sustained bull market, when prices broadly rise.

He also sees Sui's annual decline as a possible discount for someone who believes in its future. A lower price may offer an opportunity, but it can reflect weaker expectations too. An earlier price is a reference point, not evidence that the asset must recover.

Why Sui's supply schedule matters

The creator's main objection to Sui is its token distribution schedule. He cites monthly unlocks throughout the next 4 years, with $20 million released in November, December and January, as a potential source of selling pressure.

Unlocks make previously restricted tokens available under a project's distribution schedule. Recipients may include early backers or people involved in building the project. More tokens can become available to trade, although a release does not mean every recipient will sell.

I would distinguish that process from token inflation. Inflation generally increases token supply; an unlock can release tokens that already exist but were restricted. Both can affect circulating supply, but they describe different changes in distribution.

The creator expects some early participants to want money back after holding their exposure for years. In his view, new demand must absorb any selling they choose to do. He allows that Sui can still perform well; his objection concerns the demand needed to support it, rather than inevitable failure.

He raises supply expansion and unlock concerns about Solana too. Sui is less attractive to him because those concerns accompany a smaller project with a shorter history. His broader preference is for limited supply, though scarcity cannot make an unwanted asset valuable.

Before relying on the dollar figures, I would check the current schedule and the calculation behind them. The dollar value of released tokens depends on the price used. Token quantities and their market value answer different questions about potential selling pressure, and neither alone tells us whether demand can absorb it.

Website traffic is a clue, not adoption

Drawing on his e-commerce background, the creator treats website traffic as evidence of interest. Visitors may be learning about a project, considering its token or responding to marketing. He considers continued traffic during a weak market encouraging.

The cited or displayed figures put Solana ahead of Ethereum and Sui, with different levels of precision.

I would use these estimates to assess attention, not count token holders or network users. A visit might be a documentation search, curiosity or a return by someone who has visited before. It does not necessarily indicate investment demand.

The creator rarely visits Ethereum's main website despite his substantial exposure because he already knows the project. That offers a plausible explanation for its lower traffic: familiarity can reduce the need to visit a central site. Homepage comparisons may therefore treat established and newer networks unevenly.

He says Sui's traffic has fallen, although its changing website and project activities have drawn his attention. He still considers the remaining traffic meaningful. As a marketing observation, that is plausible; visitors do not automatically become buyers, and buyers do not automatically become long-term users.

For me, the missing connection is between attention and durable activity that supports token demand. Traffic cannot settle whether applications retain users or whether their use benefits token holders. It belongs beside the investment case, with a clear explanation of what the visits measure.

The creator's price expectations

The creator wants Ethereum to move decisively into the $6,000 to $8,000 range in the next bull run. His expectation depends on Bitcoin's performance and Ethereum's popularity. He also expects Ethereum to remain relevant, partly because of his long familiarity with it and his use of liquidity pools.

Liquidity pools hold assets that traders can swap against, usually through automated software. His positive experience with them helps explain his confidence in Ethereum. A useful financial application, however, does not by itself establish that the underlying token's price will rise.

For Solana, he predicts a break above $250. He names pump.fun and Orca as examples behind his expectation that ecosystem activity could support strong performance. This is a case based on continued interest and use, rather than a valuation calculation establishing a future price.

I would examine why that activity requires the token and whether the demand can persist. A busy ecosystem can support an investment argument, but attention driven by speculation can disappear quickly.

The creator acknowledges objections to Solana's association with memecoins and scam coins. Memecoins often attract people through a joke, community or speculative attention. Such activity can bring users to a network while exposing participants to manipulation and losses.

Sui has a shorter price history for comparing cycles. The creator cites its move from $0.70 to $5, but it has no 2017 or 2021 bull run to assess alongside Ethereum's history. He sees substantial potential while treating its future as more uncertain.

His expectation is that Sui could outperform the larger assets if it succeeds and lose more if it fares badly. I would focus on the condition attached to that forecast: it gives no date or guaranteed path to success, and market size alone cannot establish which outcome is more likely.

Longevity does not guarantee returns

The creator considers Ethereum the most durable of these projects and nearly puts Solana in the same category. He is less confident about Sui's continued relevance and allows for the possibility that it disappears. Those are judgments about longevity, not established outcomes.

Cardano is his counterexample to the idea that every new bull market improves an altcoin's results. He describes its 2025 performance as disappointing compared with 2021, and applies that concern to Sui's future cycles without claiming Sui has already followed the same pattern.

I agree with the narrow point: a market recovery does not promise recovery for every asset. Attention can move elsewhere. A project may continue operating while its token delivers weaker returns than holders expected, so survival and outperformance need separate evidence.

His suggestion that Ethereum offers something close to guaranteed money in a bull market goes too far. Durability cannot remove volatility, changing demand or the risk of buying at a price that later proves difficult to recover. All of these tokens can suffer substantial losses.

Smaller assets may be particularly sensitive to shifts in attention and trading conditions. Larger capitalization does not make a token safe either. Liquidity, the ability to trade without sharply moving the price, can weaken under market stress.

I would also separate direct token holdings from DeFi exposure. Smart contracts, the software executing blockchain-based transactions, can contain flaws. Liquidity-pool positions can perform differently from holding the underlying tokens. Enthusiasm about yield does not remove those application-specific risks.

Make the forecast answerable

The creator's cases rest on different sources of expected demand. Ethereum depends heavily on familiarity and staying power; Solana on ecosystem activity; Sui on a smaller project growing enough to justify greater uncertainty. A useful comparison needs evidence appropriate to each claim.

Website visits support a claim about attention, while charts describe past performance. Neither establishes future adoption or a fair token price. I would look for the connection between those observations and the demand expected to benefit holders, rather than assume one establishes the other.

The price expectations above can be compared with subsequent prices. The underlying arguments also need conditions that can be checked: whether demand persists, whether the projects remain relevant and whether available supply overwhelms buyers. Without those conditions, a forecast based on size alone explains little about why the token should appreciate.

For Sui, the unresolved issue is concrete: whether demand can absorb tokens made available to early backers who may want to sell.