Cetus, a decentralized exchange (DEX) built on the Sui blockchain, has reportedly fallen victim to a massive exploit resulting in the loss of over $260 million. According to on-chain analytics platform Lookonchain, the attacker siphoned funds and quickly swapped them into USDC, bridging approximately $60 million to Ethereum where they were converted into ETH.
Lookonchain revealed that the exploiter used $58.3 million USDC to acquire 21,938 ETH at an average price of $2,658 per token, raising concerns about the security of SUI-based DeFi protocols.
The breach has triggered a sharp decline in the value of many Sui-based tokens listed on Cetus. Tokens like LBTC and AXOL have nearly lost all their value, while others such as LOFI, HIPPO, and SQUIRT have plunged more than 80% in just six hours, according to DEX Screener data.
Cetus Responds, Investigation Underway
Cetus confirmed the incident via its official X (formerly Twitter) account, stating:
“There was an incident detected on our protocol and our smart contract has been paused temporarily for safety. The team is investigating the incident at the moment. A further investigation statement will be made soon. We are grateful for your patience.”
To contain the damage, Cetus immediately paused all smart contracts and launched an internal security investigation.
Earlier reports from Onchain Lens suggest the attacker may have gained unauthorized access to all SUI-denominated liquidity pools, allowing them to completely drain the protocol’s assets.
Industry Support and Reactions
In response to the exploit, Binance founder CZ stated that Binance’s security team is offering assistance to the Sui network in efforts to track the stolen funds and support recovery operations.
This incident marks one of the largest DeFi exploits on the Sui blockchain to date and raises critical questions about the protocol’s vulnerability to sophisticated on-chain attacks.
