SUI-Based Cetus Protocol Reportedly Exploited for Over $260M, Investigation Underway

Cetus, a decentralized exchange (DEX) on the Sui blockchain, has reportedly suffered a devastating exploit. According to on-chain investigator Lookonchain’s update, over $260 million was stolen from Cetus.

The attacker swapped the stolen assets into USDC and bridged roughly $60 million to Ethereum, where it was exchanged for ETH.

Lookonchain further reported that the exploiter has already spent $58.3 million USDC to purchase 21,938 ETH at an average price of $2,658 per token.

The breach has caused a dramatic collapse in the value of numerous Sui-based tokens on Cetus, with some assets like LBTC and AXOL losing nearly all their value. Other tokens such as LOFI, HIPPO, and SQUIRT have lost over 80% in the past six hours, according to data compiled by DEX Screener.

Cetus acknowledged the exploit via its official X account and confirmed that it had paused its smart contracts as a precaution and launched an internal investigation.

“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.”

Onchain Lens previously speculated that the attacker had gained control of all SUI-denominated liquidity pools before draining them.

Meanwhile, Binance founder CZ tweeted that their team has extended support to the Sui team following the incident.