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Sui DeFi Exchange Cetus Back in Action After $233 Million Exploit

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In brief

  • Sui’s leading decentralized exchange, Cetus Protocol, is back up and running following an exploit.
  • Cetus used a loan from the Sui Foundation, recovered funds, and its cash reserves to rectify losses.
  • The protocol is offering CETUS tokens to affected users as a compensation for liquidity losses.

Cetus Protocol, the leading decentralized exchange on the Sui blockchain, is officially back online after a malicious oracle attack led to an exploit of $233 million in May. 

The exploit, which sent multiple SUI-based tokens tumbling 70-90%, manipulated price curves and reserve calculations, allowing the attacker to remove liquidity from pools on the DEX. 

“The attacker exploited a vulnerability in a CLMM-dependent open source library, drained assets from our major pools, and conducted a large number of on-chain swaps, severely disrupting pool prices and balances,” the platform wrote in a Saturday blog post.

“Since the incident, we’ve taken decisive steps to ensure the security of the protocol, recover assets, and prepare for a safe relaunch,” the post noted.

🌊 The Final Countdown Has Begun.

Cetus will officially relaunch in just a few hours. Ahead of that, we’re unveiling our complete Recovery Plan and what’s next for the protocol. 🐳

This isn’t just about recovery or bouncing back — it’s about resilience, rebuilding, and an… pic.twitter.com/VNejffrjbS

— Cetus🐳 (@CetusProtocol) June 7, 2025

Those steps included retrieving around $162 million in funds frozen from the attack via a community governance vote, receiving a $30 million bridge loan from the Sui Foundation, patching vulnerabilities, and developing a compensation plan to address user losses. 

Using the bridge loan from the Sui Foundation, 100% of the company’s cash reserves, and the recovered assets from the exploit, the company has now returned all affected liquidity pools to a healthy state, earning liquidity recovery rates of between 85-99% for the respective pools. 

“Though an incident like this is disappointing, the overwhelming industry response to how it was handled has been incredibly positive,” Sui Foundation Managing Director Christian Thompson told Decrypt. “We are particularly proud of the speed and responsiveness of collective action taken by the Sui community.”



“Validators independently chose to quarantine transactions from attacker addresses based on public information, and then with the Sui Foundation’s help of calling for a vote, validators chose to return these funds to Cetus,” he added.

A full 100% recovery is not possible due to “asset limitations,” the protocol said, therefore it has established a compensation plan for affected parties that will grant CETUS tokens as a result of the losses from liquidity pools. 

“We are allocating 15% of CETUS supply to the compensation contract,” the protocol wrote. “In taking these actions, it is our hope this token redistribution will transform CETUS into a more community-driven ecosystem going forward, a positive outcome from an incredibly challenging time for all of us.” 

Eligible users can connect their wallets on the compensation tab of the Cetus Protocol to claim their CETUS tokens starting on Tuesday. The compensation plan unlocks 5% of CETUS tokens immediately, with an additional 10% vesting linearly over a 12 month period.

Any outstanding funds recovered from the hack moving forward will be offered to users instead of CETUS tokens. The protocol, which is working with law enforcement in multiple jurisdictions, remains confident that an arrest and recovery is “only a matter of time.” 

“We’re rebuilding—more secure, more resilient, and more dedicated than ever to delivering secure, powerful and user-friendly DeFi infrastructure for the Sui ecosystem,” the protocol wrote.

The response to the attack from the Sui Foundation faced some pushback over centralization concerns, but Thompson said he believes it’s unfounded.

“The minority of critics who called the immediate response to the hack ‘centralized’ either misunderstood the facts about what happened, or fundamentally misunderstand what decentralization means,” Thompson told Decrypt.

“True decentralization isn’t paralysis—it’s coordination among independent parties who can act decisively when it matters,” he continued. “And the majority of the industry gets this and has been incredibly positive about both the Foundation and our community’s responses.”

SUI’s native token is up 5% in the last 24 hours to $3.44, but is down from around $4.15 on the day of the exploit. It remains nearly 36% off its January all-time high of $5.35. 

Cetus Protocol’s native CETUS token is down more than 75% from its November all-time high of $0.48 and is trading around $0.12 on Monday, a 30% decrease since the day of the exploit.

Edited by Andrew Hayward

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Crypto Trends

Sui Decentralized Exchange Cetus Is Back Online After $223M Exploit

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Sui-based decentralized exchange (DEX) Cetus Protocol is back online following a 17-day outage spurred by last month’s $223 million exploit.

The protocol recovered around $162 million worth of stolen funds and is continuing legal action against the attacker, who did not respond to the DEX’s requests to negotiate.

Sui stepped in to compensate Cetus for the initial losses, issuing a loan to reimburse impacted users on May 28. DefiLlama data shows that Cetus’ total value locked (TVL) was $284 million before the exploit and is now down to $124 million.

The attacker exploited a flaw in Cetus’ shared math library contract, tricking the protocol into believing that one token was worth millions of dollars.

Despite attempts to negotiate and come to a settlement, the attacker began laundering funds through coin-mixing service Tornado Cash.

Cetus has refilled the liquidity pools with between 85% to 99% of their initial liquidity, meaning that users can now trade on the platform without exceptional slippage.

The Cetus token (CETUS) has lost 44% of its value over the past month and is down around 1% over the past 24 hours, CoinMarketCap shows.



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The full story behind the $260 million breach
NFT Gaming

Cetus Protocol relaunches with new roadmap and compensation plan after $223m exploit

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Sui network-based Cetus Protocol has relaunched with a new roadmap, open-source plans, and a compensation programme following a $223 million exploit.

The decentralized exchange unveiled its post-relaunch strategy in a June 8 blog post, outlining measures to enhance protocol security, upgrade monitoring systems, and transition toward full open-sourcing.

A newly structured white hat bounty programme has also been introduced to support community-driven security efforts.

According to the team, all affected CLMM pools have now been replenished using a combination of recovered assets, treasury funds, and a $30 million loan from the Sui Foundation.

Liquidity providers will regain access to their previous positions, with recovery rates ranging from 85% to 99%, depending on the extent of the damage to each pool.

To compensate for unrecovered losses, Cetus has allocated 15% of its native CETUS token supply to affected users. Of this, 5% will be immediately claimable, while the remaining 10% will be unlocked monthly over the next year, starting June 10. 

The team clarified that the 15% CETUS allocation introduces no new inflation, as it repurposes unvested team tokens within the existing supply cap.

Compensation claims will be tied to LP position NFTs, which will remain valid as certificates for CETUS redemption, even after liquidity is withdrawn.

The protocol has also completed new security audits covering all code patches, contract upgrades, and the compensation contract. Additional rounds of audits and real-time threat detection upgrades are planned to further strengthen protocol resilience.

The Cetus Protocol was exploited on May 22, after an attacker manipulated its liquidity pool pricing by exploiting a flaw in a third-party code library.

In the immediate aftermath, the Cetus team froze operations and began working with Sui validators to recover assets. An on-chain governance vote held on May 29 approved the transfer of $162 million in frozen funds to a multisig wallet for recovery.

Further, the Sui Foundation supported the effort with a dedicated USDC loan to backstop off-chain losses.

Cetus stated that legal proceedings are ongoing in multiple jurisdictions, with law enforcement agencies actively engaged. The attacker, who declined a $6 million white-hat bounty, is reportedly attempting to launder assets, although the team claims that most movements remain traceable.

“We are highly confident that successful arrest and recovering the remaining assets is only a matter of time,” Cetus wrote in the latest announcement.

If additional funds are recovered during the compensation period, users will have the option to redeem CETUS for USDC. Once that period ends, remaining funds will be used for token buybacks and deposited into the community treasury.

The latest announcement, however, failed to lift CETUS, which fell around 7% on the day, extending a downtrend that began in May.



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May’s crypto hacks total $244m; Sui, Cetus claw back $157m
Crypto Trends

May’s crypto hacks total $244m; Sui, Cetus claw back $157m

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Crypto hacks resulted in approximately $244.1 million in losses during May 2025.

According to blockchain security firm PeckShield, this marks a 39.29% decrease from April’s figures. The month recorded roughly 20 major incidents, with coordinated recovery efforts successfully freezing some stolen assets.

The most notable development involved the collaborative response between Sui (SUI) validators and Cetus Protocol following a massive $220 million exploit. Network participants managed to freeze $157 million of the stolen funds, a 71% recovery rate from the total theft amount.

Cetus exploit dominates monthly losses

The Cetus Protocol incident was the largest single hack of the month and accounted for the majority of losses. According to blockchain security firm Dedaub, attackers exploited a vulnerability in the most significant bits check mechanism.

This allowed them to manipulate liquidity parameters by substantial margins and establish disproportionately large positions with minimal effort.

While hackers successfully looted $220 million from the protocol, approximately $63 million remains in the exploiter’s wallet, with the remainder frozen through validator coordination.

The remaining top exploits of the month included Cork Protocol losing $12 million. A purported North Korean-affiliated strike that caused losses of $5.2 million came next.

The MBU token suffered a $2.2 million exploit, while MapleStory Universe experienced a $1.2 million breach and rounded out the top five incidents.

Despite the major absolute losses, May’s figures are an improvement over previous months in the context of 2025’s overall security losses.

More than $1.63 billion worth of cryptocurrencies was stolen in the first quarter of this year. Additionally, PeckShield said that almost 92% of all losses at that time were caused by the Bybit vulnerability.

January’s security incidents resulted in over $87 million in stolen cryptocurrency, while February experienced a surge to $1.53 billion. This was primarily driven by the massive Bybit attack that ranks among the largest crypto thefts in history.



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Sui Foundation stays neutral; $162m hack plan up for vote
GameFi Guides

Sui community backs vote to recover Cetus hack frozen funds

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The Sui community has voted to unlock over $160 million in frozen assets following a major exploit of Cetus, a leading decentralized finance protocol on the network.

In a May 29 post on X, Sui (SUI) confirmed that validators representing 90.9% of the total stake voted “yes” in an on-chain governance proposal to move the frozen funds into a multi-sig wallet. The vote is a critical step in Cetus’s (CETUS) recovery plan after a $223 million exploit rocked the protocol on May 22.

Update – Validators representing 90.9% of stake have said “Yes” in the onchain community vote, and the vote has concluded early.

With this result, the impacted funds will be moved to a multi-sig wallet and held in trust until they can be returned to users according to the plan… https://t.co/qG8aPAhD8e pic.twitter.com/WjiSbLWt8n

— Sui (@SuiNetwork) May 29, 2025

The community vote was initiated after Cetus requested protocol-wide support to recover and return assets that were frozen on-chain following the hack. The attacker had exploited a vulnerability in third-party code to drain multiple liquidity pools, later bridging a portion of the funds to Ethereum (ETH). Validators managed to freeze $162 million of the stolen assets on Sui before more damage could be done.

As part of the recovery plan, the unlocked funds will be held in a trust account controlled by a multisig until they can be returned to affected users. Cetus has committed to combining the recovered funds with its treasury and a loan from the Sui Foundation to ensure all victims are fully reimbursed.

Although the flaw was in Cetus’ code, not the Sui network itself, Sui is treating the exploit as a critical moment for the ecosystem’s security model. In response, it announced a $10 million initiative to improve protocol-level audits and formal verification tools. Sui is also expanding its bug bounty program to cover major protocols with high total value locked.

Sui’s transparent and community-driven response has been praised by some community members, while others continue to express concerns about freezing wallets in a supposedly decentralized system. The vote was open to both validators and individual stakers, whose choices were reflected through their delegated stake.

With the vote now finalized, Cetus is expected to release a detailed timeline for reimbursements. Compensation efforts are set to begin soon, with full repayment now possible due to the newly recovered funds.





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Shaurya Malwa
Crypto Trends

Sui Steps in to Compensate Cetus Losses in Full After $223M Exploit

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Shaurya is the Co-Leader of the CoinDesk tokens and data team in Asia with a focus on crypto derivatives, DeFi, market microstructure, and protocol analysis.

Shaurya holds over $1,000 in BTC, ETH, SOL, AVAX, SUSHI, CRV, NEAR, YFI, YFII, SHIB, DOGE, USDT, USDC, BNB, MANA, MLN, LINK, XMR, ALGO, VET, CAKE, AAVE, COMP, ROOK, TRX, SNX, RUNE, FTM, ZIL, KSM, ENJ, CKB, JOE, GHST, PERP, BTRFLY, OHM, BANANA, ROME, BURGER, SPIRIT, and ORCA.

He provides over $1,000 to liquidity pools on Compound, Curve, SushiSwap, PancakeSwap, BurgerSwap, Orca, AnySwap, SpiritSwap, Rook Protocol, Yearn Finance, Synthetix, Harvest, Redacted Cartel, OlympusDAO, Rome, Trader Joe, and SUN.



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GameFi Guides

Cetus Reveals Recovery Plan, Taps SUI for Bridge Loan

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Six days after a $223 million exploit shook the Sui ecosystem, decentralized exchange Cetus has announced a recovery initiative that would override hacker-controlled wallets through a protocol-level upgrade, if the community approves it.

The vote will determine whether $162 million in frozen funds can be forcefully reclaimed from the attacker’s wallets via a protocol-level upgrade as part of Cetus’s “larger recovery plan.”

Cetus has requested a community driven vote to recover the funds frozen following last week’s hack.

In response, the Sui Foundation has released code for an onchain community vote. Sui validators can cast votes, and Sui holders can also vote directly through stake delegation.… https://t.co/pVLTItN0MH

— Sui (@SuiNetwork) May 27, 2025

“Using our cash and token treasuries, we are now in a position to fully cover the stolen assets currently off-chain,” Cetus tweeted on Tuesday. “This includes a critical loan from the Sui Foundation, making a 100% recovery for all affected users possible.”

The recovery plan follows a recent attack on Cetus that exploited flaws in DEX’s automated market maker and oracle logic, enabling hackers to drain liquidity pools across the network.

A community vote, launched at 1 p.m. PT on May 27 and open for up to seven days, will decide whether to authorize a protocol upgrade that reclaims the frozen funds without the hacker’s signature. 

If approved, the assets will be moved into a 4-of-6 multisig wallet jointly controlled by Cetus, auditing firm OtterSec, and the Sui Foundation, according to a statement from Sui.

SUI holders can delegate their stake to validators who vote “yes,” “no,” or “abstain.” The Foundation’s own stake is excluded to preserve neutrality. 

The upgrade will only pass if over 50% of the total stake participates and a majority votes in favor.

As of early Wednesday morning, 37.3%  had voted “yes,” with zero “no” votes recorded. The remaining 62.7% of votes have not been cast. 

The vote can close early if the result becomes mathematically decisive after the initial 48-hour period.

If passed, the protocol upgrade will permit aliased addresses to perform exactly two transactions, one for each hacker-controlled wallet. These transactions will transfer funds into the multisig wallet. 

The Cetus exploit occurred due to a critical flaw in overflow protection, where a faulty bitwise truncation check allowed attackers to bypass safeguards and manipulate liquidity calculations, according to a post-mortem report from blockchain security firm Dedaub.

Blockchain analytics firm PeckShield confirmed last Thursday that $61.5 million of stolen funds in USDC has since been bridged to Ethereum; the rest remains frozen on Sui.

Sui (SUI) is up 6.9% in the last 24 hours, to $3.70 after falling sharply from $4.18 to $3.82 in the immediate aftermath of the Cetus exploit, CoinGecko data shows.

Edited by Sebastian Sinclair

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SUI stalls below resistance amid $223M Cetus Protocol hack
GameFi Guides

Sui Foundation issues loan to Cetus for user compensation

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The Sui Foundation has stepped in with a secured loan to help decentralized exchange Cetus fully compensate users affected by a recent $223 million exploit.

In a statement posted on X on May 27, the foundation said the loan will cover funds that the hacker managed to bridge out of the Sui (SUI) network before validators froze their wallets. Cetus will combine the loan with its treasury assets to reimburse affected users in full, provided the community approves a separate on-chain vote to unlock the frozen funds.

Cetus echoed this sentiment in another statement, apologizing for the incident and asking the Sui community to support the recovery vote. “We are now in a position to fully cover the stolen assets currently off-chain,” the team said, “if the locked funds are recovered through the upcoming community vote.”

On May 22, Cetus suffered a complex exploit targeting a flaw in its concentrated liquidity market maker contracts. The attacker exploited unchecked math operations in a third-party code library and manipulated prices using a flash swap. As a result, they were able to drain several pools by faking liquidity deposits and repeatedly withdrawing real tokens.

The attacker managed to transfer a significant amount of the stolen assets to Ethereum (ETH), even though validators were able to freeze $162 million on-chain. These bridged funds are the focus of the current compensation plan.

The hack caused the CETUS token to drop by 40% and is still 20% down in the past week. The total value locked on the Sui network also fell from $2.13 billion to $1.77 billion, as per DefiLlama data. 

Though the bug was in Cetus’ code and not Sui’s base infrastructure, the Sui Foundation acknowledged its role in supporting ecosystem-wide security. Alongside the loan, the foundation announced an additional $10 million commitment to fund audits, bug bounties, and formal verification tools.

To encourage white-hat hackers to find vulnerabilities before they are exploited, it also intends to broaden its bug bounty program to include high-value protocols like Cetus, which have over $50 million in TVL.

While the quick action from validators helped prevent further damage, some in the community voiced concerns that freezing wallets undermines the decentralization ethos of blockchain. Others praised the swift response and transparent handling of the crisis.

A detailed recovery plan from Cetus is expected soon. Compensation efforts are scheduled to begin regardless of the vote’s outcome, though full recovery depends on whether the community supports unfreezing the remaining funds.





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SUI stalls below resistance amid $223M Cetus Protocol hack
GameFi Guides

SUI stalls below resistance amid $223M Cetus Protocol hack

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SUI is trading at $3.62 at press time, down 1% in the past 24 hours, as the token struggles to recover from the aftermath of the $223 million Cetus Protocol hack on May 22.

The attack, which is one of the biggest decentralized finance hacks this year, has cast a shadow over Sui’s (SUI) ecosystem. It has sparked concerns about the network’s decentralization and stalled bullish momentum. Before the attack, SUI had risen more than 60% in a month, peaking on at around $4.29 on May 12.

Sui’s impressive rally was thanks to the growing interest in real-world asset tokenization and new institutional partnerships. But the attack triggered a sharp sell-off, with SUI dropping almost 14% in a day. It’s now down nearly 20% from its pre-hack levels and trading in a range between $3.48 and $3.62. 

The exploit targeted flaws in Cetus’s smart contracts using spoof tokens like BULLA and MOJO to manipulate price feeds and deplete liquidity pools. The SUI/USDC pool alone had about $11 million stolen from it. Trading was halted, and the total value locked on the Sui chain fell from $2.13 billion to $1.92 billion.

Cetus protocol’s native token fell by 40%, and due to the loss of liquidity, USD Coin (USDC) momentarily lost its dollar peg. Sui validators successfully froze $162 million of the stolen assets by blacklisting the attacker’s wallet. This prevented most of the funds from leaving the network, but it raised questions about the true extent of validators’ power. 

Critics argue that freezing transactions on demand goes against the idea of decentralization. Some pointed out that a small number of validators and insiders may control most of the network, with very few users participating in governance.

On the market side, Coinglass data shows that derivatives volume in the last day has jumped nearly 40% to $3.57 billion, suggesting increased short-term interest, likely from volatility traders. At the same time, open interest dropped 2.9% to $1.77 billion, showing signs that some traders may be pulling back or taking profits.

Technical indicators show mixed signals. The relative strength index is neutral at around 50. Short-term momentum indicators point to a possible upside, but the moving average convergence divergence is showing a bearish crossover. Short-term moving averages indicate downward pressure, while longer-term indicators provide more bullish signals.

Sui price analysis. Credit: crypto.news

The 50-, 100-, and 200-day moving averages are all flashing buy signals, suggesting that if SUI can withstand the damage caused by the hack, it will continue to be in an overall upward trend. For now, SUI is stuck below the $4 resistance. Traders are watching closely to see whether it can break above or if the fallout from the Cetus hack will keep weighing on the market.



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Pi Network, Cetus, Optimism: Cryptocurrencies to watch
NFT Gaming

Pi Network, Cetus, Optimism: Cryptocurrencies to watch

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As broader crypto markets struggle to regain momentum, a handful of digital assets stand out amid the turbulence.

Bitcoin (BTC), which surged to a record high of nearly $112,000 last week, dropped to $107,000, while the market cap of all coins tracked by CoinGecko dropped to $3.49 trillion. 

Pi Network (PI), Cetus Protocol (CET), and Optimism (OP) have emerged as top tokens to watch, showing relative resilience despite mounting trade-related risks weighing on investor sentiment.

While most major cryptocurrencies face headwinds from weakening momentum and macroeconomic uncertainty, these three projects are drawing our attention.

Pi Network 

Pi Network price will be in the spotlight this week as over 70 million more tokens worth $53 million are set to be unlocked. Most unlocks will happen on May 28, when 15.2 million coins will come online.

Pi Network, founded in 2019 by Nicolas Kokkalis and Chengdiao Fan, unlocks new tokens daily. Some 261 million coins set to be released in June and 1.57 billion in the next 12 months. Unlocks lower the price by increasing the number in circulation, especially when there is no demand.

The Pi coin price has been under pressure in the past few weeks, falling from a monthly high of $1.6692 to $0.7766. This crash accelerated after the developers launched Pi Network Ventures, which will invest $100 million in startups using the Pi coin. 

While an ecosystem fund is a positive move, the coin dropped because the announcement did not include a plan to get more tier-1 exchange listings. The developers did not address the centralization issues and the increased supply through token unlocks.

Pi Network has formed a bearish flag pattern on the eight-hour chart, pointing to more downside, potentially to this month’s low of $0.5545.

Pi Network price chart | Source: crypto.news

Cetus Protocol

Cetus, the biggest decentralized exchange on Sui (SUI), made headlines last week when hackers drained tokens worth millions of dollars. The protocol managed to freeze $162 million worth of funds before the hackers moved them completely.

In a statement, Cetus hoped for a successful community vote to unlock the frozen $162 million worth of funds. Sui said that it was designing the on-chain vote, which will likely happen this week.

Thank you to the Cetus team for sharing your Q&A. We appreciate your dedication and commitment to quickly resolving this matter.
In support, we are working on the design of the upcoming onchain community vote and will share further details with the Sui community soon. https://t.co/1IiyIYq5XI

— Sui (@SuiNetwork) May 25, 2025

Cetus is also aiming to reach a whitehat settlement with the hackers. It has also offered a $5 million bounty to help identify the hackers and take legal action. 

CET, its native token, has been in a freefall, moving from a high of $0.2568 on May 22 to $0.1300, its lowest level since April 23.

CET price chart | Source: TradingView

Optimism

Optimism, a top layer-2 network, will be in the spotlight this week as it unlocks $23.4 million coins, accounting for 1.88% of the float. These unlocks are part of the regular monthly releases.

OP token has dropped from a high of $2.7715 in November last year to $0.7320 today. It has remained below the 50-day and 100-day moving averages. It also formed an ascending broadening wedge, a popular bearish reversal pattern. 

OP price chart | Source: crypto.news

Maverick Protocol, dYdX, Celo, and Velas Finance are some of the other cryptocurrencies with large token unlocks this week.





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