Introduction to Sei Network
Robinhood has officially listed SEI. SEI is hosting settlement layers for major entities like BlackRock, PayPal, and Circle. However, the cryptocurrency market frequently sees new chains emerge, each claiming to be "the future of trading," with Sei being the latest contender.
Promises are easy to make, but delivering them is a different story, especially in a volatile market. This deep dive series aims to separate narrative from numbers, examining a project's core strengths and weaknesses, and assessing its growth trajectory for long-term potential. Today, we are diving deep into SEI, offering a sober look at whether Sei deserves a place among the next generation of base layers, rather than engaging in speculation.
Sei Network: A Bullish Perspective
Sei Network ($SEI) is a project built with strong fundamentals, purpose-built for high-throughput and offering real-time trading infrastructure. Sei demonstrates strength in DeFi and also addresses the Real World Assets (RWA) sector, a market with significant growth potential. Furthermore, it diversifies its focus by being strong in the gaming sector, where it has captured 50% of the market by active wallets.
Sei has captured over 50% of the total gaming market.
Gaming represents a perfect value exchange sandbox: high-frequency economies, stable in-game micro-transactions, instant settlement needs.
Sei is a frictionless settlement layer for financial use cases of all types.
($/acc) pic.twitter.com/kBQDpQgIOm
— Sei (@SeiNetwork) August 23, 2025
Sei is also recognized as one of the fastest chains currently available. Its network utilizes a "Twin-Turbo Consensus," which targets a 400-millisecond time to finality (TTF) – the point at which transactions become irreversible. Sei achieves this in under a second, a speed crucial for DeFi and blockchain gaming.
Traditional assets are slow, siloed, and confined to market hours.
Tokenized assets trade 24/7, settle in 400ms, and are DeFi-ready.
The $30B tokenization market is just the start – and it’s accelerating on the fastest EVM chain.
Markets Move Faster on Sei. ($/acc) pic.twitter.com/LeYJ7Zsv3m
— Sei (@SeiNetwork) September 1, 2025
The network is preparing for its Giga upgrade, which is expected to enable Sei to handle 200,000 transactions per second (TPS). Sei originated on Cosmos but is transitioning to a full EVM chain, as evidenced by the recent SIP-3 upgrade. This upgrade moves SEI from CosmWasm to an EVM-only chain, impacting Cosmos wallets like Keplr or Leap and phasing out older Cosmos addresses starting with 'sei...'.
SIP-3 wallet upgrades are live — a major milestone on the road to Sei Giga.
Sei Giga will redefine EVM performance: sub-400ms finality, 5 gigagas/sec throughput(~200k TPS).
SIP-3 upgrades Sei to EVM-only, paving the way for Sei Giga — the most performant upgrade in EVM history. https://t.co/J9kJUA71Nj
— Sei (@SeiNetwork) October 28, 2025
Real World Assets (RWA) on Sei
Regarding RWA news, the tokenization firm KAIO launched a tokenized fund on the SEI Network on October 22nd, utilizing Laser Digital. This demonstrates a clear RWA use case for the chain. Laser Digital is a subsidiary of Nomura, Japan's largest investment bank, and KAIO provides institutional-grade infrastructure for RWAs, indicating the involvement of significant players.
Laser Digital’s tokenized LCF Fund is live on Sei.
Laser Digital, a subsidiary of Nomura (Japan’s largest investment bank), joins institutional RWA offerings from BlackRock, Brevan Howard and Hamilton Lane on Sei via @KAIO_xyz.
RWAs Move Faster on Sei. ($/acc) pic.twitter.com/qGICpvzxU7
— Sei (@SeiNetwork) October 22, 2025
In early October, Sei was ranked as the fourth ecosystem by TVL efficiency, which is the ratio of borrow/lend activity to total TVL. This metric suggests that Sei is developing into a mature and capital-efficient ecosystem.
There was Solana, Hyperliquid, Ethereum, and then Sei.
Sei is now the fourth-ranked ecosystem by TVL efficiency — the ratio of borrow/lend activity to total TVL — signaling its emergence as a mature, capital-efficient ecosystem.
Markets Move Faster on Sei. ($/acc) pic.twitter.com/eEyYroTlze
— Sei (@SeiNetwork) October 9, 2025
Blockchain Gaming on Sei
In terms of blockchain gaming, DappRadar's Q3 report on blockchain gaming ranks Sei as #2 in terms of Unique Active Wallets (UAWs). This represents an 86% increase in one quarter, equating to 802,000 daily active wallets.
Sei Network: A Bearish Perspective
Despite its promising architecture and stated goals, the Sei Network must overcome several challenges to succeed in the current market. Achieving its ambitious performance promises at scale is a complex undertaking, and many projects have historically fallen short of their high-performance claims in real-world production environments.
Sei operates within a highly competitive Layer 1 ecosystem, facing significant competition from established chains like Solana and Sui. To capture a meaningful market share, Sei needs to demonstrate sustained adoption that goes beyond initial hype.
Many of Sei's key promises, such as the Giga upgrade, are still in development and have not yet been fully proven at scale. While the potential is evident, its practical implementation and impact remain to be seen. Therefore, while the technology is promising, its real-world effectiveness is yet to be validated.
Ecosystem metrics like Total Value Locked (TVL) or the number of active projects may lag behind more established chains, creating a risk of having a technically advanced platform with limited user engagement. Sei is currently ranked 17th on DeFiLlama for TVL and 102nd on CoinGecko by market capitalization.
Tokenomics and Market Risk
The native token, $SEI, is subject to typical cryptocurrency market volatility and general market risks. For instance, despite its recent listing on Robinhood, its price has experienced declines. Currently, the $SEI price is down by 4.8%, with a 32% decrease over the last 30 days and a 53% decrease over the past year.
SEI what? $SEI is now live on Robinhood https://t.co/JFPzzspYhj
— Sei (@SeiNetwork) October 30, 2025
The $SEI token also has monthly unlocks of 55.56 million $SEI, approximately 1.1% of its circulating supply, valued at around $10 million. This unlock schedule is expected to continue until August 2027, after which smaller monthly emissions will occur. A positive aspect is that 62% of the $SEI tokens are already in circulation.
On-chain metrics indicate a significant fall in trading volume in recent months. While ecosystem growth shows promise, it could be stronger, with a lack of major DeFi projects launching on the network. This results in lower organic demand for $SEI and suggests potentially weak momentum.
Capital is currently flowing into larger-cap cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana, which are also facing price challenges. Consequently, market sentiment around Sei appears to have slowed down for the time being. However, this does not necessarily indicate a lack of future potential.
Can Sei Network Succeed?
Sei Network possesses genuine potential, meeting several key criteria across various crypto sectors, including niche verticals like high-frequency trading, DEXs, and blockchain gaming. Its claimed performance capabilities and EVM compatibility are significant advantages, reducing friction and attracting developers.
The primary risks lie in execution and adoption. Sei must adhere to its technical roadmap and attract meaningful ecosystem usage, as short-term hype is insufficient for long-term success. While it has the potential to emerge as a strong contender, failure to differentiate itself in a crowded market or experiencing stalled growth could limit its long-term impact.
For long-term investors and builders, Sei is a project worth monitoring, provided they are aware of both the potential upside and the execution risks involved.
Sei needs to leverage its performance advantage to become the go-to chain for:
- •High-frequency trading
- •DEX applications
- •Real-time financial infrastructure
Upgrades like Giga offer the potential for significant performance leaps, which could attract large institutional or infrastructure builds.
Sei exhibits solid foundational strength, offering a robust architecture and compatibility advantages through its transition to an all-EVM chain.
While Sei Network is not yet a guaranteed success, it has the potential to become one. For those seeking a higher-risk, higher-potential project, Sei may be a suitable option.