- Cetus Protocol was attacked, causing $260 million in damage, affecting the Sui blockchain.
- Sui's TVL reached $2.2 billion, showing strong DeFi growth despite recent incidents.
Cetus Protocol, the leading decentralized exchange and liquidity center on the Sui [SUI] blockchain, suffered a serious security breach, with estimated damages between $223 million and $260 million.
Source: Onchain Lens/X
The incident caused the SUI price to drop sharply by 15% to $3.90, shocking the ecosystem.
The company has acknowledged,
"The team is investigating the incident. A detailed announcement will follow."
While the investigation is ongoing, the cryptocurrency community has rallied, with industry leaders like CZ from Binance expressing support for the affected network during this difficult time.
Source: CZ/BNB/X
Details of the Cetus Protocol Attack
According to information from Lookonchain, the recent attack on Sui's Cetus DEX was traced to a wallet identified as "0xe28b50."
This address is believed to be associated with the hacker responsible for the incident and currently holds over 12.9 million SUI Tokens (approximately $54 million).
Additional information,
"The hacker is converting stolen funds to USD Coin and cross-transferring to Ethereum, with about $60 million in USD Coin already transferred."
Widespread Impact
Initial investigations indicate that the attacker exploited Cetus Protocol by deploying a fake BULLA Token to manipulate pricing mechanisms and reserve indicators on the platform.
The attacker manipulated liquidity pools by adding minimal liquidity, allowing them to drain real assets like SUI and USD Coin.
In response, the Cetus team has paused the affected smart contract to prevent further losses.
The chain reaction from the incident also forced the Haedal liquidity staking platform on Sui to temporarily suspend its haeVault feature, which depends on the affected Cetus liquidity pools.
Haedal stated,
"User safety remains our top priority. haeVault will resume operations once all risks are resolved and the environment is secure."
After the attack, many Sui-based Tokens linked to Cetus Protocol suffered severe losses, with assets like LBTC and AXOL nearly completely losing their value.
Other Tokens such as LOFI, HIPPO, and SQUIRT dropped sharply by around 80% within six hours.
Cetus Team's Steps
In the chaotic context, Cetus successfully froze approximately $162 million in affected assets, according to a recent update on X.
Source: Cetus/X
Moreover, the protocol is actively collaborating with Sui Foundation and ecosystem partners to trace and recover the remaining stolen funds.
Price Movements of Tokens on Sui Blockchain
Despite the sharp decline of Sui-linked Tokens like CETUS dropping nearly 30%, HAEDAL falling over 5%, and SUI dropping over 7%, the overall network outlook remains optimistic.
Although SUI is trading below its January peak, the protocol achieved a significant on-chain milestone when Total Value Locked (TVL) reached a historic $2.2 billion on May 22.
The 222% growth compared to the same period last year indicates a resilient DeFi ecosystem and continued investor confidence, suggesting that Sui's platform can withstand the current volatility.
