Catenaa, Friday, May 30, 2025-Cetus, a decentralized exchange on the Sui blockchain, said Tuesday it is prepared to return 100% of user funds lost in a $223 million exploit-pending the outcome of a community vote.
The platform stated that the recovery would rely on a combination of its cash and token reserves, alongside a critical loan from the Sui Foundation.
The vote would authorize the recovery of locked funds, enabling full reimbursement to affected users.
Cetus urged the Sui community to support the proposal, acknowledging that while the request was extraordinary, it was a necessary step toward righting the damage caused.
The platform also pledged to initiate partial recovery efforts regardless of the vote’s outcome.
The exploit, which took place on May 22, severely impacted Sui-based tokens and led to a 50% drop in Cetus’s native token, CETUS.
The vulnerability originated in a flaw in the protocol’s Concentrated Liquidity Market Maker (CLMM) pool smart contract. Hackers exploited a coding error involving overflow checks to manipulate liquidity pools before Cetus disabled the core contract.
Cetus said it has since patched the vulnerability and reaffirmed its commitment to restoring user trust.
The incident adds to a growing list of decentralized finance breaches, including Wormhole’s $323 million loss in 2022 and Ronin’s $600 million hack that same year.
According to The Block, over $5.3 billion has been stolen from DeFi protocols to date.
Cetus’s bid to fully reimburse users could mark one of the most comprehensive recoveries in DeFi history-if approved by the community.
