Mysten Labs CEO Kevin Boon Tells Sui Roundtable He Is Looking to Increase Staking Subsidy

Mysten Labs CEO Kevin Boon said he is looking for ways to increase the staking subsidy on Sui, telling listeners he is "very unhappy that [Sui] staking is below 2%." Boon spoke on Tuesday on the Sui Roundtable, Ep. 39, hosted by @eyezenhour and @0xd34th, in his first appearance on the series since taking over as CEO. He did not announce a proposal, an amount or a timeline.

"Last time I was here, I was president," Boon said at the start of the Space. He said he hopes this is "the first of many times" he joins the community this way.

What he said about staking

Boon said the programmed decline in the staking subsidy made sense when it was designed. The plan assumed that lower subsidy-funded rewards would be made up by gas fees and other network activity. That, he said, was "too early. We are not there yet."

"I am looking for ways to increase the staking subsidy," Boon said. He said he wants to give new users a reason to buy SUI, hold it and stake it, which he said also contributes to the network's security. He described staking as the on-ramp for newcomers: users who stake in Slush wallet, he said, are then exposed to DeFi.

The numbers behind it

Sui staking rewards come from two sources: gas fees and a stake subsidy paid out of a reserve of SUI that the protocol set aside for that purpose. Sui's documentation says the subsidy funds rewards during the network's early phases; once it runs out, gas fees make up all staking rewards. On mainnet, it is paid every epoch, about every 24 hours, and the per-epoch amount falls by 10% every 90 epochs.

In epoch 1293 on October 27, the subsidy was about 254,187 SUI per epoch, according to Sui's on-chain system state. With about 7.08 billion SUI staked, the subsidy alone equals roughly 1.3% of the staked amount per year, on SuiWire's calculation. The staking tracker suistaking.io listed 125 active validators and an average APY of 1.31% on October 27, with a high of 1.45% for a single validator.

SuiWire did not find a published Sui Improvement Proposal or governance proposal to raise the subsidy. Boon did not say how he would pursue a change.

Token focus and institutions

Boon said the biggest change he has made as CEO is a "re-emphasis on the business of the token." He said he wants Mysten Labs, the Sui Foundation and the wider ecosystem to move away from the idea that the token is "a dirty word." "No, it's a wonderful word," he said, adding that it is "exactly what we should focus most on."

"And it's already starting to happen," Boon said. "You saw that we did that wonderful, wonderful partnership with Robinhood, which gets our name out there."

He said he wants more institutional education in 2027, including roadshows and meetings with family offices, endowments and other large financial institutions.

Robinhood listed SUI for U.S. customers in August 2025. SuiWire reported on October 16 that Robinhood had launched its "SUI 101" in-app campaign, which pays eligible users $5 in SUI for learning about the network, and AMBCrypto reported on it on October 18. Boon did not say which Robinhood program he meant.

Samsung Wallet, tokenized stocks and meme coins

Asked about the Samsung Wallet integration that Samsung and Sui announced this month, Boon said USDC on Samsung Wallet is "the first step." He said that simply moving digital dollars between wallets would not be enough, because users expect perks, and he suggested Sui could add yield and discount coupons or codes inside the wallet. He cautioned that he could not say what is promised and that the roadmap is at a very early stage. Samsung, which also names Solana as a network partner, has said the feature starts rolling out to eligible U.S. Galaxy users in the last week of October, and that about 82 million Galaxy devices in the U.S. are compatible with Samsung Wallet.

On tokenized equities, he said "tokenized stocks definitely are on the roadmap." He described three routes: tokenized versions of regulated assets, mirrored or wrapped assets, and perpetual futures. He called it an open question which is best, and said building the first two is costly and complex. He said he has talked with "a major tokenized equities partner" in the mirrored or wrapped category that "we are looking very, very closely at." He did not name the partner.

On meme coins, Boon said "I want to see meme coins on [Sui]" and that there is no aversion to them from him or the team. He said he will not endorse specific projects or coins, because the ecosystem has competing interests and because one failed endorsement could damage the community. "I cannot go out and endorse specific projects," he said. He also said social trading is "a core focus" and that Sui should keep running trading competitions.

Background

Evan Cheng, Mysten Labs' co-founder, said in an October 16 letter that he had asked Boon, then the company's president, to become CEO while Cheng stays on as CTO and leads an AI business unit. The letter gave no effective date. Boon was named president in January 2025 after serving as chief legal officer. Before Mysten Labs, he was general counsel at Picsart, led legal teams at Block and was lead counsel for retail teams and subsidiaries at Amazon, according to the company. He holds a J.D. from Fordham Law and a fine arts degree from Carnegie Mellon University.

On the Space, Boon traced his path from art school to law to Mysten Labs and said community has been the thread through his career.

What to watch

Boon's remarks are statements of intent. The staking subsidy runs on a fixed on-chain schedule, and SuiWire found no published plan to change it. Whether a proposal follows, and how large any increase would be, is the open question.