Suilend, a community-owned decentralized lending and borrowing protocol on the Sui blockchain, has experienced explosive growth. This accomplishment has solidified it as the largest decentralized finance (DeFi) player of all time. Since its launch in March 2024, marking the Solend team's first expansion outside of Solana, Suilend's Total Value Locked (TVL) has surged to over $2 billion in early 2025. This next milestone follows closely on our heels from one billion dollars TVL in January 2025. It is a testament to the protocol’s rapid adoption—we are seeing increased demand for our services. By late 2024, Suilend had established itself as the biggest lending platform on the Sui network. It has a huge TVL of almost $470 million and at times garnered the best monthly revenue of all protocols.

The protocol works as intended, due in large part to its architecture. It brilliantly combines the proven user-friendly design of DeFi money markets with the high-tech infrastructure of the Sui blockchain. Additionally, Suilend is already pulling in new assets, particularly stablecoins, with great success as it launched on Sui. This increase fuels its expansion and expands its potential market reach. With its robust lending operations generating approximately $16 million in annualized revenue by early 2025, Suilend is poised for continued expansion and innovation within the burgeoning Sui ecosystem.

Suilend's Rise to Prominence on Sui

Suilend's journey to becoming a dominant force in the Sui blockchain's DeFi landscape began in March 2024. This acquisition was a significant strategic expansion for the Solend team, which is known for its existing presence on the Solana blockchain. Suilend caught on in a hurry. It leveraged the exclusive capabilities of the Sui network to deliver fast, safe lending and borrowing services.

The protocol’s architecture has been carefully thought through to maximize performance and user experience. It’s no surprise—it harmoniously interconnects all of the essential aspects such as Lending Markets and Reserves. It includes Deposits, cTokens, Obligations (Account NFTs), Collateral & Liquidation mechanisms, as well as Auditable Smart Contracts. By taking this all-inclusive route, they are promoting a secure, intuitive environment for users within the DeFi ecosystem.

By late 2024, Suilend was already taking over a healthy portion of the Sui market. It soon grew to be the chain’s biggest lending platform with close to $470 million TVL and over $1.5 million in monthly revenue. This early success demonstrated the power of the protocol. That made way for some huge growth and adoption in the subsequent months.

Core Components and Functionality

Suilend acts as a pioneer money market protocol on the Sui network. It takes advantage of some unique features to provide speed without sacrificing security. The protocol’s architecture consists of multiple integral components that function together to enable lending and borrowing activities. The lending markets and reserves and deposits/ctokens are the pieces that make up the puzzle. They go into Obligations (Account NFTs), Collateral & Liquidation, Smart Contracts & Security.

Lending Markets and Reserves form the foundation of Suilend's operations, providing a platform for users to supply and borrow assets. Deposits are represented by cTokens, which accrue interest over time, providing an ongoing incentive for users to make deposits and lend through the system. Represented through Account NFTs, Obligations store information on a user’s borrowing, as well as a user’s collateral position.

Collateral and Liquidation mechanisms protect the overall financial health of the protocol by managing systemic risk and ensuring collateralization ratios are always sufficient. Smart Contracts regulate execution of each transaction, making the process fully transparent and secure. These core components combine to make Midas a powerful yet user-friendly DeFi lending platform.

Suilend’s architecture combines the proven design of DeFi money markets with the innovative infrastructure of the Sui blockchain. This unique combination brings together powerful tools for a seamless and secure user experience. It takes advantage of Sui’s high throughput and low latency to ensure peak performance. Through a commitment to innovation and user-centric design, Suilend has emerged as a frontrunner in the DeFi lending landscape.

Tokenomics and Community Engagement

Suilend’s tokenomics foster community engagement and long-term sustainability. The makeup of the SEND token distribution reflects a deep desire to be decentralized. More than half of this supply – a remarkable 65% – is reserved for the community. This distribution consists of 40% of SEND allocated to SEND distributed through Mdrop airdrops over three cohorts, with 10% going to each cohort group.

The Mdrop distribution model is a distinctive feature of Suilend’s protocol. This creates an important opportunity for a large, fair and decentralized, initial token distribution to the community. By reducing instant sell pressure, this approach is more long-term holder friendly. Three primary stakeholders are benefiting from the Mdrop’s success. - Suilend early users & points holders 20% - Sui ecosystem communities 5% - Save (Solend) token holders on Solana 15%

20% of the remaining token supply is allocated to early investors, whereas 15% of the supply is allocated to the founding team. This third distribution structure creates the best incentive alignment between all of the stakeholders. By giving the community an active stake in governance and future development of the protocol, it protects that community’s investment. Through a focus on community engagement and sustainable tokenomics, Suilend seeks to cultivate a dynamic and decentralized ecosystem.

Funding and Future Outlook

Suilend has recently raised a great deal of capital to further its development and growth. By the end of 2024, the protocol had raised $6 million with a series of smart funding rounds. This included $2 million raised by early 2024 and an additional $4 million by the end of Dec. 2024. This capital infusion has allowed Suilend to significantly improve its technology platform, grow its team and develop impactful marketing strategies.

The protocol's innovative "Mdrop" distribution mechanism and its position as a leading lending platform on the Sui blockchain position it for significant growth within the expanding Sui ecosystem. With a strong foundation, a dedicated team, and a growing community, Suilend is well-equipped to capitalize on the opportunities presented by the rapidly evolving DeFi landscape.

Looking to the future, Suilend has big plans to keep things interesting and further diversify its product line. Going forward, the protocol aims to add more features, connect with other DeFi protocols, and continue improving its user experience. Like Suilend hosts the technological and community engagement on the cutting edge. Riding on this momentum, the platform is poised to further consolidate its leadership in DeFi lending and speed up the adoption of decentralized finance on the Sui blockchain.