Cetus Protocol, a decentralized exchange on the Sui blockchain, was exploited, resulting in losses exceeding $200 million and triggering widespread panic in the Sui ecosystem. The attacker gained control of all SUI-denominated pools, moving significant amounts of assets, including $60 million in USDC, to the Ethereum network.
Following the incident, the Cetus team paused smart contracts to prevent further losses and is investigating the root cause. While the team initially downplayed the exploit as a "bug," this characterization was met with backlash from experts. Market data showed tokens on the protocol suffering severe price drops, with the top 15 tokens losing over 75% of their value within 24 hours.
Additionally, earlier reports indicated a liquidity drain of approximately $11 million worth of SUI from the platform’s liquidity pool. The Cetus team suggested this was due to an oracle bug rather than a hack. Despite the panic, the SUI token showed a modest short-term price rally of 3.15% and increased trading volume by 112%, reaching nearly $2.5 billion in daily volume.
The incident is part of a troubling trend for the broader crypto ecosystem, which has seen a historic high in hack-related losses in Q1 2025, totaling over $1.6 billion largely driven by attacks on centralized exchanges.