Cetus, a decentralized crypto exchange (DEX) built on the Sui blockchain, announced that it has managed to freeze $162 million out of the over $220 million stolen during a hack on May 22.
The Cetus team is collaborating with the Sui Foundation and other ecosystem partners to attempt and retrieve the remaining stolen monies. The Sui Foundation verified the freeze and stated:
“A large number of validators have recognized the stolen monies’ addresses, and any transactions from those addresses will be refused until further notice. The Cetus team is looking at how to reclaim the funds and return them to the community.”
This hack is just the latest in a series of attacks hitting the crypto and Web3 space in early 2025. Cybersecurity remains a huge concern for the industry, with many experts urging the community to strengthen defenses or face tighter regulatory scrutiny.
🚨ANNOUNCEMENT
As of earlier today, we have confirmed that an attacker has stolen approximately $223M from Cetus Protocol. We have took immediate action to lock our contract preventing further theft of funds.
$162M of the compromised funds have been successfully paused. We are…
— Cetus🐳 (@CetusProtocol) May 22, 2025
The incident was purportedly caused by a smart contract flaw, which allowed hackers to drain more than $223 million from the DEX. Extractor, a Web3 security tool, said that around $63 million of stolen funds were transferred to the Ethereum network.
The team behind the extractor also determined that the attackers used a wallet ending in “AF16” to launder over 20,000 ETH, valued at nearly $53 million.
While the coordinated freeze and recovery efforts by validators and ecosystem players were welcomed by some, others raised concerns about decentralization. One user pointed out:
“Good news for the victims, but if only 114 validators can freeze wallets at will, this raises severe concerns about the network’s censorship resilience. “Sui isn’t as decentralized as it claims,” one user in response.
