Cetus presents $6M bounty after $220M hack as Sui faces decentralization debate

Cetus presents M bounty after 0M hack as Sui faces decentralization debate
Cetus presents M bounty after 0M hack as Sui faces decentralization debate


Cetus is providing a $6 million white hat bounty in an effort to get better $220 million in stolen digital property, whereas emergency responses from the Sui Community have raised issues about decentralization.

Sui-native decentralized trade (DEX) Cetus was exploited for over $220 million price of cryptocurrency on Might 22. Nevertheless, Cetus managed to freeze $162 million of the stolen funds shortly after.

Cetus has since provided a white hat bounty of as much as $6 million for the exploiter for returning the stolen 20,920 Ether (ETH), price over $55 million, together with the remainder of the stolen funds at the moment frozen on the Sui blockchain.

“In trade, you’ll be able to maintain 2,324 ETH ($6M) as a bounty, and we are going to take into account the matter closed and won’t pursue any additional authorized, intelligence, or public motion,” Cetus wrote in a message embedded in a blockchain transaction on Might 22.

A bounty provide to the hacker. Supply: Suivision

Nevertheless, Cetus will “escalate with full authorized and intelligence assets” if these property are off-ramped or despatched to cryptocurrency mixers and never returned promptly.

A white hat bounty is obtainable to moral hackers who search protocol vulnerabilities to forestall future exploits.

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Cryptocurrency hacks soared to $90 million throughout 15 incidents in April, a 124% improve from March when hackers stole $41 million price of digital property.

Crypto stole in April 2025. Supply: Immunefi

In the meantime, the trade continues to be recovering from the biggest crypto hack, which noticed Bybit trade lose over $1.4 billion on Feb. 21, 2025.

Associated: Bitcoin hits new all-time high of $109K as trade war tensions ease

SUI considers emergency white listing operate to override transactions

In the meantime, GitHub exercise shows the Sui workforce has thought of implementing an emergency whitelist operate that will permit sure transactions to bypass safety checks, probably to get better funds linked to the hack.

Mysten, Sui, white listing operate. Supply: GitHub

“It seems that the Sui workforce requested each validator to deploy patched code so they might take away @CetusProtocol hacker’s $160 million by way of an unsigned tx,” stated Chaofan Shou, a software program engineer at Solayer Labs.

Nevertheless, an unnamed Sui engineer instructed Shou that “validators held off deploying this and at the moment they’re solely denying tx that includes hacker’s objects,” he stated in a Might 22 X post.

The transfer has sparked criticism amongst decentralization advocates, who argue that the flexibility to override transactions contradicts the rules of a decentralized permissionless community.

Regardless of widespread criticism within the crypto group, some noticed the speedy response as an indication of progress, not centralization.

“That is what actual world decentralization seems to be like. Not simply powerless, however responsive and aligned with the group,” said pseudonymous crypto sleuth Matteo, including that decentralization “isn’t about standing by whereas folks get harm, it’s in regards to the energy to behave collectively, with no need permission.”

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