TLDR:
- Approval: The Sui community has overwhelmingly passed a resolution on May 30, 2025, to recover $162 million frozen from the Cetus exploit, setting it up for compensation and total product launch sometime soon.
- Recovery Plan: Cetus’ 8-step recovery plan, carried out in coordination with the Sui Foundation and OtterSec, involves protocol upgrades, restoration of the liquidity pools, and deploying compensation contracts, which aims to bring back resilience and confidence to the Sui ecosystem.
The Sui community has passed an emergency resolution to capture $162 million that was frozen following a recent Cetus Protocol hack, which is an AMM DEX which has been performing very well on the Sui network. The community has put out a statement to that effect on 30th May 2025 as a significant step towards reimbursing affected users and rebuilding the entire product suite within a week.
There was a critical security exploit of Cetus Protocol, namely, on May 22, when hackers drained out liquidity from several trading pools, and token prices plummeted by 80-90% within minutes. The exploit has been estimated to be around $223 million, of which $60 million had been sent to Ethereum and are likely to be unrecoverable, and $160 million locked up in the Sui blockchain. Initial investigations pointed out the overflow bug in Cetus’s function for calculating liquidity to be responsible. While attempts had been initiated to negotiate with the hacker to get back Ethereum-transferred funds, no response had been received, and therefore, Cetus adopted alternate avenues of resolution.
Cetus had previously stated that it would take a loan from the Sui Foundation to pay for the damages until there is community consensus on how to proceed with the frozen $160 million. The on-chain voting process took less than 48 hours and passed by an overwhelming majority of 90.9% of validators and stakers of the Sui network.
As per the plan that has been agreed upon, we are going to transfer $162 million of funds locked by Sui validators to a jointly held multisig wallet by Cetus, OtterSec, and Sui Foundation. This is the first step for a complete recovery plan after the attack. The team of Cetus has put an 8-step plan to restart the overall product stack within a week. Key highlights are:
- Upgrading the protocol to facilitate the transfer of assets to the multisig wallet.
- Developing a new CLMM contract with emergency pool recovery features.
- Restoring liquidity pool data and calculating damages.
- Rebalancing swapped assets during the attack to minimize slippage and optimize pool states.
- Issuing compensation contracts, currently under audit before deployment.
- Enhancing auxiliary modules and restarting the entire system, allowing affected liquidity providers to withdraw while unaffected pools operate normally.
The rapid and widespread outpour of support from the Cetus team and the Sui community is a welcome indication. The 90%+ voting rate is a powerful reminder of how efficiently Sui’s governance thrives when it matters most. The community trusts that transparency and an open recovery plan and backing from security allies such as OtterSec and the Sui Foundation can help get Cetus back and thrive within the Sui community.
Despite these positive developments, the CETUS token declined during the course of the previous seven days and is currently trading at around $0.145, down by over 14%. The correction indicates caution by the market while recovery steps are underway. The quick action by the Sui community and orderly response by Cetus reflect a commitment to rebound and recovery and could very likely shape how such an event is handled from now onwards.
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