Cetus Protocol Resumes with Open-Source Vision After Major Hack

Cetus Protocol, a decentralized exchange native to the Sui blockchain, has resumed operations and announced plans to become fully open-source after suffering a significant security breach in May that resulted in a $220 million loss. The attack exploited a flaw in the pricing mechanism, allowing the hacker to drain tokens from major liquidity pools on May 22. The protocol managed to freeze $162 million of the stolen assets shortly afterward. Prior to the attack, trading volume was high, with over $5 billion traded in both April and May before the platform shut down.

In its relaunch, Cetus replenished affected liquidity pools using a mix of recovered assets, cash reserves totaling $7 million, a $30 million USDC loan from the Sui Foundation, and some of the recovered stolen assets. Not all pools were fully restored, with recovery rates varying between 85% and 99%, depending on the extent of the drain. The team also patched the software vulnerability, restored correct pricing data, and conducted security audits on all updates and upgrades.

Looking ahead, Cetus plans to move toward full open-source development, introducing a white bounty program to encourage community security contributions. As part of their compensation strategy for affected users, 15% of CETUS tokens are being reserved—5% available immediately, with the remaining 10% linearly unlocked over the next year starting June 10. Following the relaunch, the CETUS token experienced a decline of over 12%, trading at approximately $0.11. The protocol also intends to enhance its monitoring systems and conduct additional security audits.

Legal actions are underway, with proceedings initiated in multiple jurisdictions and law enforcement involved. The attacker ignored a white hat bounty offer of up to $6 million for returning the stolen Ether, which was valued at over $55 million, along with the frozen assets on the Sui blockchain. Cetus remains committed to recovering the remaining funds and bringing the attacker to justice, asserting confidence that arrest and recovery are only a matter of time.