Cetus Hack Drains $223M from Sui Network, Binance Steps In to Help
Nidhi Kolhapur23 May 20253 min read
The Sui ecosystem faced a crisis yesterday after an exploit hit its top liquidity provider, Cetus. The attack drained over $200 million from the protocol, causing panic across the network. As a result, popular Sui memecoins like Lofi, Sudeng, and Squirtle saw their prices crash by 76%, 80%, and 97% within just an hour. The Cetus token itself also plunged 53% following the incident.
Data from DEX Screener shows that 46 tokens on the Sui network suffered double-digit losses in the last 24 hours.
Cetus has now confirmed that the attacker stole approximately $223 million from the Protocol, and it has successfully frozen $162 million of the stolen funds. The team acted quickly to lock the smart contract and is now working with the Sui Foundation and ecosystem partners to recover the rest. A full incident report is on the way.
Binance To Help SUI
Binance co-founder took to social media and said that they are doing everything within their power to get SUI out of the unpleasant situation. “We are doing everything we can to help SUI,” he said.
CZ contacted the Sui team to offer help and said they responded quickly. He also mentioned that many security teams are working on finding out what happened. Binance may step up to support the network or assist the affected users. This could also mean rescue measures, technical help, or even financial aid through Binance’s SAFU fund.
Attacker Uses Fake Tokens to Manipulate Cetus Protocol
The attacker exploited a flaw in Cetus Protocol’s smart contracts by using fake tokens to manipulate price data and reserve balances.
This allowed them to extract real assets from multiple liquidity pools, including the SUI/USDC pool. While a team member first called it a bug, the team later confirmed that it was a hack and asked users to stay calm as they investigated. The smart contract has been paused temporarily to prevent further losses.
Circle Faces Criticism for Slow Action
Industry experts are calling out Circle for its slow response to attacks and delays in freezing stolen funds. It took over five hours during the Bybit hack. Cyvers CEO Deddy Lavid warned that waiting for post-mortems instead of acting on real-time alerts makes delays as dangerous as doing nothing.
This hack is one of the major crypto thefts in recent months, including ByBit’s $1.4 billion breach in February and Coinbase’s insider attack, which cost up to $400 million.
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FAQs
- Cetus Protocol, a top Sui liquidity provider, suffered an exploit, draining over $200 million and causing prices of Sui memecoins to crash significantly.
