SUI Liquidity Provider Suffers $260M Hack, Cetus Offers $6M Bounty To Recover Funds

The Sui Network’s largest decentralized exchange (DEC) and liquidity provider, Cetus Protocol, suffered a massive $260 million crypto hack yesterday. In the latest update, Cetus has offered a $6 million bounty to the hacker to recover the stolen ETH, worth about $56 million.

SUI’s Cetus Offers $6M Bounty Post $260M Hack

Following the $260 million crypto hack, the Cetus Protocol has announced a time-sensitive settlement offer to the hacker in an attempt to recover the stolen funds. In their latest X post, the team wrote,

We have identified the Ethereum wallet address controlled by the hacker responsible for earlier today’s exploit, and reached out to negotiate the return of customer funds.

In detail, Cetus and Inca Digital sent a message to the hacker, offering a $6 million white hat deal. According to the deal, if the hacker returns the 20,920 ETH (worth around $56.3 million) and the frozen funds in the Sui wallets, they could keep 2,324 ETH (approximately $6 million) as a bounty. If agreed, the platform will consider the matter closed and refrain from taking further legal or public action. However, if the stolen assets are moved or mixed, legal proceedings will be initiated.

Cetus Hack: Details

As revealed by Lookonchain, Sui’s Cetus DEX has been exploited by a hacker, whose wallet address is identified as “0xe28b50.” Reportedly, the attacker holds over 12.9 million SUI, valued at about $54 million.

Lookonchain further uncovered that the attacker is laundering the stolen funds by converting them to USDC. Later, they transferred approximately $60 million worth of USDC to the Ethereum blockchain, where they’re being exchanged for ETH. Analyst Ted also confirmed that the hacker has already bought $60 million worth of ETH tokens.

Following the incident, the Cetus team has paused its smart contracts and is actively investigating the exploit.

Preliminary findings suggest the attacker used fake tokens, such as BULLA, to manipulate price curves and reserve calculations, adding minimal liquidity to distort internal LP states and drain real assets like SUI and USDC. The team confirmed that the contract has been paused “for safety.”

The development team sprang into action after learning of the Cetus incident. They promised to investigate and take necessary action. The team wrote,

At 3:52 AM PT, we became aware of an incident concerning Cetus. The Cetus team has our active support in this ongoing investigation and will provide further updates as soon as they become available.

In response to the crypto hack, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao shared an X post, offering full support to the platform. He wrote on X, “We are doing what we can to help SUI. Not a pleasant situation. Hope everyone stay SAFU!”

SUI Price Plummets

After the crypto hack, the SUI token plummeted, marking a 15% decline over four hours, despite an earlier rally following OKX’s launch of xBTC, a 1:1 wrapped Bitcoin token.

However, the bullish trend was momentary as the token dipped and is now trading at $3.83. While the SUI price dipped by 4.38% over the past 24 hours, it has seen a notable surge of 33% over the past 30 days. Initial reports suggested a massive outflow of $200 million in funds, triggering panic across the community.

In addition to SUI’s plummet, other Sui-based tokens on Cetus, like LBTC and AXOL, experienced severe downturns, losing nearly their whole value. Other assets like LOFI, HIPPO, and SQUIRT dropped by about 80% over the past six hours, driven by the crypto hack.