Mill City Ventures III has revealed a significant $450 million investment to acquire Sui, marking a major milestone in the expanding adoption of cryptocurrencies by publicly traded companies. The Nasdaq-listed lender announced its decision in a Monday press release, confirming that the purchase will take place via open market transactions. Following the announcement, Sui’s token value rose by 11% on the day and recorded a cumulative five-day increase of nearly 270%, reflecting heightened investor interest.
Traditionally known for lending to small and mid-sized businesses, Mill City Ventures has opted to treat Sui as a strategic reserve asset. With Sui currently positioned as the 15th largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization and trading at $4.07, the move underscores a growing trend among corporations to diversify their digital asset holdings beyond Bitcoin.
Strategic Collaboration and Institutional Backing
The investment is being executed through Karatage, an affiliated investment entity of Mill City Ventures. The initiative also involves collaboration with the SUI Foundation and participation from several prominent blockchain-focused firms, including Galaxy Digital, Pantera Capital, FalconX, and Big Brain Holdings. This collective backing reinforces institutional confidence in Sui’s potential as a blockchain infrastructure solution.
Originally created by engineers with previous ties to Facebook, the Sui blockchain is designed for high-throughput performance and scalability. It supports smart contracts, is optimized for low-cost transactions, and aims to offer enhanced decentralization. These features make it a strong candidate for enterprise and consumer applications, including those that incorporate artificial intelligence.
Mill City’s leadership has indicated that the acquisition reflects confidence in Sui’s technical merits and future adoption potential across business ecosystems. The network’s architecture is seen as particularly suitable for organizations that require high-speed, secure blockchain performance. As institutional players explore broader blockchain strategies, Sui’s emergence as a viable treasury asset appears to be gaining traction.
Institutions and traditional participants may soon have Nasdaq-listed access to this Sui treasury company, as early as this Thursday. https://t.co/hpJdxQ7sO6
— Sui 「🦑」 (@SuiNetwork) July 28, 2025
Corporate Crypto Strategies Continue to Evolve
This acquisition is viewed as part of a broader market trend in which companies reassess how they integrate digital assets into their treasury management. Sui’s reputation as an efficient Layer 1 blockchain has begun to draw institutional capital, illustrating a shift from traditional crypto dominance toward functional, application-driven tokens.
This development follows the precedent set by MicroStrategy—now known as Strategy—which was among the first public firms to add Bitcoin to its corporate treasury. With over 607,000 BTC currently held, the firm’s strategy has influenced many others to explore similar allocations. More recently, companies like Semler Scientific and Metaplanet have also added Bitcoin, while others have diversified into coins such as Solana, Ethereum, XRP, and BNB to tap into new opportunities and capture price momentum.
Sui’s inclusion into a public company’s balance sheet signals a departure from the typical market-cap-based approach to crypto adoption. Instead, companies are beginning to evaluate tokens based on their underlying utility and use case relevance. This evolution in strategy suggests a growing sophistication in how corporate treasuries are approaching the digital asset space.
As firms continue to diversify their crypto holdings, it becomes clear that blockchain integration is no longer limited to speculative investment. Instead, real-world application potential and technical differentiation are becoming central to treasury decision-making. Mill City Ventures’ sizable investment in Sui may therefore serve as a bellwether for future capital allocation strategies within the corporate crypto sector.