The CETUS protocol, a leading decentralized exchange on the SUI blockchain, suffered massive hacking that resulted in losses of more than $223 million, prompting the team to act quickly and ignited concerns across the DEFI community.
$260 million cut from CETUS protocol
On May 22, 2025, the CETUS protocol is the largest decentralized exchange (DEX) and liquidity provider on the SUI blockchain, becoming a victim of significant exploitation. Taking advantage of the vulnerability in its smart contracts, allowing attackers to completely drain the liquidity pool. The exploit resulted in an estimated loss of more than $200 million, although Cetus later confirmed that figure was about $223 million.
We learned that this morning, the CETUS smart contract was hacked for about $223 million, and Cetus subsequently suspended their smart contract to prevent further theft.
CETUS works with other Defi protocols, SUI Foundation and SUI validators to… https://t.co/y1iw2snnpw
– sui (@suinenetwork) May 22, 2025
The attack caused a huge surge in transaction volumes, with CETUS processing $2.9 billion in transactions, in stark contrast to the $320 million recorded the day before as funds were quickly removed from the agreement.
Crypto cybersecurity firm Hacken reports that at least $63 million has been bridged to Ethereum, with 20,000 ETH transferred to a new wallet in a transaction.
CETUS works with the SUI Foundation, SUI Verifiers, and other Defi protocols to mitigate damage.
By the evening of May 22, the team announced that they had successfully frozen $162 million in stolen funds, about $63 million unverified. Hackers reportedly tried to convert the remaining assets to USDC and bridge them to Ethereum for ETH, a common strategy to cover up the traces of stolen funds.
🚨Announcement
As of earlier today, we have confirmed that the attackers have stolen approximately $223 million from the CETUS protocol. We have taken immediate action to lock in the contract to prevent further theft of funds.
The $162 million in compromise funds has been successfully suspended. we are…
– cetus🐳 (@cetusprotocol) May 22, 2025
Disaster attacks SUI ecosystem tokens, with great losses
Hackers pass Sui Ecosystem, immediately impact token prices. The SUI/USDC liquidity pool was almost emptied, causing the token price of DEX to be reduced by more than 75%.
Source: Dexscreaner
this explain Tokens fell sharply, with value dropping by 40% as transactions on the platform stopped.
Source: Coingecko
The DEX market in the SUI ecosystem has been severely damaged, with many assets losing more than half of their value in 24 hours.
The wider SUI ecosystem feels the heat, too, and some X posts describe this as “the Sui ecosystem is submerged in flames.” The community expresses a mix of frustration and concern, and users urge caution as they wait for updates.
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) expressed support and said on X: “We are doing our best to help Sui”, which provides potential help to major players in the cryptocurrency space.
We are doing everything we can to help SUI. Unpleasant situation. I hope everyone stays!
– cz🔶bnb (@cz_binance) May 22, 2025
$160 million has been recovered
As of May 23, 2025, CETUS and SUI Foundation have made great progress in addressing hacking. In a follow-up post, Cetus shared that they were involved with a wider ecosystem, including the SUI team, to assist in investigations and solutions.
📜Dear Sui Community, thank you for your patience in our team conducting incident investigations and solutions.
Since taking the measures pointed out in the previous announcement, we have also done the following:
1. We are involved in the wider ecosystem, SUI teams and relevance… https://t.co/gs1ewxz6ad
– cetus🐳 (@cetusprotocol) May 22, 2025
SUI co-founder and CPO discussed vulnerabilities in the community space, confirming that $150 to $160 million has been secured and efforts to recover the remaining $60 million. They also promise to return affected users, a move that could help restore trust.
Sui Co founder and CPO are talking about the recent Cetus vulnerability!
They confirmed that more than $15 billion to $160 million of hackers have been frozen!
The rest of 60m has disappeared, but it will definitely be handled!
The stolen funds will be returned to exploited users!
There seems to be no… pic.twitter.com/ddxtevrwbq
– Cryptomaster (@cryptomastercom) May 22, 2025
The hacker campaign is under scrutiny, with blockchain analysts tracking funds to identify potential recovery opportunities. CETUS has not resumed transactions yet, and users are advised to remain cautious as the situation develops.
The incident also drew attention to the wider Defi landscape, with some experts calling for stricter security measures in the agreement. Although Cetus marked the activity as “error,” the scale of exploitation highlights the need for strict smart contract audits, especially for platforms that deal with large amounts of liquidity (such as CETUS), a cornerstone of the SUI ecosystem.
