Hacker Plunders $223,000,000 Worth of Crypto from Sui-Based Decentralized Exchange

The largest decentralized exchange (DEX) and liquidity protocol on the layer-1 blockchain Sui (SUI) is temporarily disabling its smart contracts following a major security breach.

In a statement, Cetus Protocol confirms that a bad actor siphoned approximately $223 million worth of assets from the platform.

The DEX says it has already taken measures to prevent further theft and secure the majority of the impacted funds.

“$162 million of the compromised funds have been successfully paused. We are working with the Sui Foundation and other ecosystem members right now on next-step solutions, with the goal of recovering the remaining stolen funds.”

According to Sui, a large number of validators are already ignoring transactions on addresses with the looted assets. Meanwhile, the blockchain security firm SlowMist says some of the tokens were already swapped into USDC and bridged to Ethereum (ETH).

Cetus says it is now negotiating for the return of the funds after identifying the Ethereum wallet controlled by the hacker. The protocol says the perpetrator can keep 2,324 ETH worth around $6.2 million as bounty if he or she complies with the terms of the settlement.

“We have offered a time-sensitive whitehat settlement in exchange for the outstanding balance. Should the hacker accept our terms, we would also refrain from pursuing further legal action.”

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