Cetus Platform on Sui Network Compromised and Prices Plummet: What You Should Be Aware Of
The Cetus Network, a prominent DEX within the Sui Platform, has been compromised, resulting in a loss exceeding $200 million. As a consequence, CETUS, SUI, and various meme coins associated with the Sui protocol experienced significant declines. Here’s what you should know regarding the Cetus Protocol breach.
Every event has its first occurrence. Ethereum experienced a protocol fork shortly after its initial launch. Although it wasn’t a vulnerability breach, the fallout and disputes affected ETH significantly, creating divisions in distributed record philosophy.
Cetus Protocol Breached
Since its inception in May 2023, the Sui Protocol thrived until today, when the Cetus Platform became a target for hackers.
Cetus(@CetusProtocol) on #SUI has been hacked and has lost over $260M!
The perpetrator is converting the stolen assets into $USDC and cross-chaining to #Ethereum to trade for $ETH, with around $60M $USDC already converted.https://t.co/b0uGu8icXrhttps://t.co/0BpKSaygmr pic.twitter.com/txfxLoImOd
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) May 22, 2025
The network experienced losses estimated between $220 million and $230 million in an incident that reverberated throughout the crypto and Decentralized finance sectors.
Cyberattacks result in not only the rekt of assets, data, and funds but also have profound repercussions, sometimes even triggering sell-offs in some of the top cryptocurrencies available.
The fallout from the Cetus Platform breach prompted a price drop, resulting in a drop of over 40% in CETUS prices and trailing behind some of the leading Solana meme coins.
Understanding Cetus Network
So, what transpired? The Cetus Protocol functions as a decentralized trading network (DEX) operating on the Sui Network.
It employs the concentrated market fluidity crypto market maker (CLMM) model that was first established by Uniswap, integrating aspects from Trader Joe’s CLMM framework.
In addition to facilitating coin swaps, Cetus stands as one of the premier liquidity providers on the Sui network.
Within the Sui ecosystem, users predominantly engage with Cetus for SUI/USDC exchanges, but as a DEX, it accommodates numerous market fluidity pools for various tokens created on the protocol.
Over time, Cetus evolved into a central hub for meme crypto token trading on this scalable network.
What Occurred?
Being a central DEX on Sui, Cetus was (as predicted) a prime target for cybercriminals.
On May 22, hackers exploited various available volume pools, extracting $11 million from the SUI/USDC pool and draining funds from multiple meme crypto token pools, leading to a collapse in coin values.
(Source)
The Lombard Staked BTC (LBTC) pool was particularly hard-hit, almost entirely depleted.
How did the Cetus Network breach occur?
Experts have indicated that hackers gained access to all SUI-denominated liquidity pools.
They then created or deposited nearly worthless spoof tokens to distort CLMM pricing curves and reserves, allowing them to extract legitimate assets without providing equivalent value.
It appears that all @CetusProtocol market fluidity pools were eliminated
Investigating the transactions, the probable route of exploitation was:
1. Exchange a spoof token (e.g. BULLA → SUI), taking advantage of miscalculations in the price curve or flawed reserve math.2. Introduce market fluidity with a minimal amount to influence internal market fluidity pools… pic.twitter.com/FtpYRSpwWW
— sashko
This was feasible due to a rounding error within the liquidity pool logic.
An attacker exploited a rounding error in the market fluidity pool logic.
Cetus misjudged LP shares:
If you contributed 1 token, it sometimes credited you as if you added 2.
This might seem illogical, but it was effective.
— Sui Corner (@SuiCorner) May 22, 2025
Although the Oracle was anticipated to identify this issue, Cetus claimed the breach occurred due to a malfunction in the pricing Oracle.
At that point, hackers had made off with tokens worth over $200 million.
Around $60 million in USDC was swiftly transferred to Ethereum and exchanged for ETH within an hour.
However, there is positive news: Approximately $160 million has reportedly been frozen and is set to be returned to Cetus available volume pools.
Earlier today, we confirmed that an attacker has misappropriated approximately $223M from the Cetus Protocol. We took immediate measures to secure our contract and prevent additional loss of funds.
$162M of the compromised assets have been successfully halted. We are…
— Cetus
SUI’s Damage Control Measures
In light of plummeting crypto token values, Cetus Network halted its contracts to prevent additional losses.
Additionally, it has committed to a comprehensive investigation.
Developers of the Sui Platform have vowed their base level.
We’ve been informed that a automated agreement of Cetus was compromised earlier today for around $223M, and Cetus subsequently paused their smart contracts to avert further theft.
Cetus collaborated with other Decentralized finance protocols, the Sui Foundation, and Sui validators to… https://t.co/Y1iw2sNnPW
— Sui (@SuiNetwork) May 22, 2025
In the midst of the turmoil, Changpeng Zhao, co-founder of Binance, stated that they would “do everything” possible to price floor Sui, noting that this exploit represents “an unfortunate situation.”
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Cetus Protocol Vulnerability breach, CETUS And SUI Prices Drop
- Cetus Protocol exploited, losing over $230 million
- Attackers focused on SUI-denominated liquidity pools
- CETUS and SUI values decrease
- Team and community investigating the incident, with $160 million reportedly reclaimed
The article Cetus Platform on Sui Network Hacked and Prices Tank: Everything You Need To Know was first published on 99Bitcoins.
