- Cetus Protocol resumed operations after a US$223M exploit, restoring 85–99 % of affected Sui-based liquidity pools and patching the exploited integer overflow bug.
- Sui validators froze US$162M of stolen funds, while Cetus injected US$7M and secured a US$30M loan from the Sui Foundation.
- The attacker has begun laundering funds via Tornado Cash, but the protocol is confident justice will be served.
Decentralised exchange (DEX) Cetus Protocol has resumed full operations following a US$223M (AU$343M) exploit that halted its platform and disrupted several Sui-based liquidity pools.
The platform confirmed its relaunch on Sunday and reported that affected pools have now been replenished to between 85 % and 99 % of their original liquidity.
The attack occurred on May 22 when the hacker used an integer overflow bug in a shared math library to inflate a deposit’s value. In other words, they tricked the system into treating one token as millions, managing to pull off hundreds of millions of dollars, officially making it the largest DeFi exploit in May.
However, Sui validators froze US$162M (AU$249M) of the stolen assets. The protocol is pursuing legal channels across multiple jurisdictions to recover what it can after its bounty was horrendously ignored.
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Regarding the rest, Cetus injected US$7M (AU$10.7M) in cash reserves and took out a US$30M (AU$46M) loan from the Sui Foundation. Yes, there’s still a big gap, which will be reportedly filled with CETUS token compensation issued over 12 months starting June.
Protocol Audited and Patched
The protocol said its codebase was audited, pools rebalanced, and the exploited vulnerability “fully patched”.
The attacker is roaming free and still controls tens of millions. They have started moving them, transferring the assets to an EVM wallet and through Tornado Cash, the Ethereum-based mixer which recently had its sanctions removed by the US government. Interesting times.
The attacker ignored our previous whitehat offer and has begun attempting to launder assets — a futile and traceable act. We are highly confident that successful arrest and recovering the remaining assets is only a matter of time.
Cetus ProtocolThe blog post also reads:
If there are new funds recovered in the future, they will be used to give users an option to forfeit remaining CETUS in exchange for USDC if the compensation period is ongoing and repay any outstanding loan amounts to Sui Foundation. If the compensation period is over, the remaining recovered funds will be used for extensive CETUS buybacks and then stored into the community treasury.
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