Sui Blockchain’s Major DEX and Liquidity Provision Protocol Cetus Faces Severe Exploit Attack, Over $260 Million Stolen
Today (5/22), Cetus, a major decentralized exchange (DEX) and liquidity provision protocol on the Sui blockchain, suffered a severe exploit attack, resulting in over $260 million in funds being stolen, shocking the entire cryptocurrency community.
Cetus Incident Overview: 83% of Funds Lost
According to a tracking report from blockchain data analysis platform Lookonchain, the Cetus protocol was attacked by hackers today, with losses exceeding $260 million.
The hackers swiftly converted the stolen funds into the stablecoin USDC and transferred approximately $60 million worth of USDC to Ethereum via a cross-chain bridge, subsequently exchanging it for ETH. Lookonchain further updated that the hackers purchased 21,938 ETH with $58.3 million in USDC, at an average purchase price of $2,658. This attack nearly drained the liquidity pools on the Cetus protocol, causing the prices of many tokens to plummet within a short time.
According to data from DeFi Llama, Cetus’s Total Value Locked (TVL) lost 83% in a single day. Its trading fees and volume over the past 24 hours indicate that its scale was originally the largest in the Sui ecosystem, far exceeding other protocols.
The Cetus protocol team later issued a statement on their official X account, stating that they had detected anomalies in the protocol and urgently paused the smart contracts to prevent further losses.
Security expert Yu Xian stated that he has intervened to assist and believes that it is not easy to escape cross-chain.
Community Believes It Is Not a Hacker Attack, but an Oracle Issue
Some opinions within the Sui community suggest that this is not a conventional “hacker attack,” but rather a result of a vulnerability in the protocol. Preliminary investigations indicate that this vulnerability may be related to the Oracle system, which led to abnormal withdrawals from the liquidity pool.
Bybit and Binance Respond to Sui Incident
Cryptocurrency exchange Bybit issued a statement reminding users to be aware of the risks in the Sui ecosystem and stated that they are closely monitoring the situation. Bybit advised users to temporarily avoid trading on Sui and to wait for further clarifications from the officials.
Binance founder Zhao Changpeng also expressed concern over the incident. He stated that Binance is doing its best to assist the Sui team in addressing this “unpleasant situation” and hopes all users can stay safe (Stay SAFU).
Risk Warning
Investing in cryptocurrencies involves high risks, and their prices can be highly volatile; you may lose all your principal. Please assess the risks carefully.