TL;DR
- An exploit on Cetus Protocol led to the theft of $223 million and caused several Sui-based token prices to plunge over 50%.
- The attack forced Cetus to pause its smart contract; $60 million had already been moved to Ethereum after being converted to USDC.
- Various efforts are underway to stop the movement of the stolen funds and track down the individual responsible.
The Sui ecosystem suffered one of the most costly attacks recorded on its network this Thursday. Cetus Protocol, one of the platform’s main DEXs and liquidity providers, was exploited, resulting in the theft of approximately $223 million. The news sent an immediate shock through the market, triggering price drops of over 50% for several tokens tied to the protocol.
The attack directly affected Cetus’ liquidity pools, weakening their ability to sustain prices and process trades normally. According to DEX Screener data, some tokens plummeted more than 90% within minutes. While prices held up slightly better on centralized exchanges at first, the liquidity imbalance eventually dragged down market prices across the board.
Cetus Plummets While SUI Manages to Hold Steady
Cetus dropped nearly 17% in the last 24 hours. Its current value sits around $0.176, while its trading volume soared by 1200%, surpassing $360 million. SUI, on the other hand, initially declined but quickly stabilized. Data from CMC shows a slight 0.9% increase over the past 24 hours, with the token priced at $3.9.
What Happened?
Preliminary investigations indicated the incident was linked to an oracle failure rather than a direct vulnerability in Cetus’ smart contracts. However, the scale of the exploit forced the team to pause the smart contract to prevent further losses. Cetus confirmed it managed to freeze $162 million of the compromised funds, but around $60 million had already been moved off the Sui network, converted to USDC, and bridged to Ethereum.
Both Lookonchain and blockchain security firm PeckShield agreed the attacker quickly moved the stolen funds to swap them for ETH, complicating any recovery efforts. In response to the severity of the incident, Cetus, the Sui Foundation, and several validators coordinated efforts to identify the involved addresses and block any further transactions from those wallets.
The project announced it is working alongside other ecosystem members to define next steps and attempt to recover what’s left of the stolen assets. It also confirmed a full incident report will be published in the coming days.
