Cetus, the Sui-based decentralized exchange, fell victim to a major hack that saw more than $220 million in assets stolen on May 22. Thankfully, thanks to a rapid response by Sui validators, about $162 million of those funds have already been frozen.
On May 27, Sui’s official X account shared that Cetus has put forward a community governance proposal to recover those frozen assets. If enough tokenholders vote “yes” by June 3, the seized funds will be pulled back from the attacker and locked into a multisig trust account. From there, they’ll be returned to everyone who held positions on Cetus at the time of the exploit.
This vote is just one part of a bigger recovery strategy. Cetus plans to tap into its own treasury, plus an emergency loan from the Sui Foundation, to make good on any shortfall. In a follow-up post also on May 27, Cetus assured users that—assuming the community agrees—their “loan from the Sui Foundation” would help ensure a full “100% recovery for all affected users.” Cetus said in a May 27 X post.
Not everyone in the Sui ecosystem is on the same page about freezing funds via validator intervention. Some folks worry this centralizes too much power, while others praise the swift action as a necessary layer of defense. As of now, roughly 53 percent of validators have backed the proposal, with about 47 percent still weighing in, according to on-chain data.
No matter how the vote turns out, Cetus says it’s ready to kick off its recovery plan immediately. Keep an eye out for a detailed timeline and next-steps guide, which Cetus promises to publish soon for anyone impacted by the hack.
