The 20,000 degree temperature gives the characteristic blue-violet color.
Yes, that is much hotter than the surface of the sun.
But it is much less than the fusion temperature at the center of the sun. (by a factor of several hundred).
The next step will be to try and measure the temp in the interior of the bubble if that's feasible. One researcher has reported detecting neutrons as a result of his experiments but there were several problems with the way he conducted them and a BBC special a few weeks ago purported to debunk his results. In any case, these experiments are revealing new information. It will be interesting to follow the results.