Cetus Protocol (CETUS) Jumps 23% as Project Takes Step to Fully Recover Stolen Assets

Cetus (CETUS), a decentralized exchange (DEX) and concentrated liquidity protocol, has experienced a notable increase in its price. The surge marks a significant step since its hack.

Following the reimbursement announcement, CETUS spiked over 23%. The asset’s trading volume also saw a sharp increase of over $184.4 million. Notably, the rise in trading volume indicates strong investor confidence despite the protocol’s past exploitation.

Cetus Reimbursement Roadmap

Meanwhile, the crypto asset’s market capitalization stands at over $ 116.19 million. According to the protocol, pending successful recovery of the locked funds via the upcoming governance vote, its combined cash and token treasuries can fully compensate for all stolen off-chain assets. This also ensures repayment of a strategic loan from the Sui Foundation, paving the way for complete restitution of 100% for affected wallet holders.

Furthermore, since complete asset recovery depends on the outcome of the upcoming governance vote, the project encourages the Sui community to participate and vote in favor of unlocking the necessary funds.

Moreover, the protocol emphasized that recovery efforts will initiate immediately following the vote, irrespective of the outcome. Additionally, Cetus noted it will publish a recovery roadmap.

As such, Cetus calls on the community to come together in this critical moment—to pass the upcoming vote, ensure complete recovery for all, and collaboratively rebuild a more resilient DeFi ecosystem on Sui.  In addition to the votes, Sui’s proposal to return Cetus assets passed with 53% support, signaling approval for execution via a special transaction mechanism.

The Sui Foundation and OtterSec, acting as joint custodians, will facilitate the transfer of approximately $162 million in restricted assets from the address associated with the unauthorized breach to their jointly administered multisignature wallet.

Cetus Hit With Massive Exploit

On May 22, 2025, the Cetus protocol on the Sui blockchain experienced a significant security breach. This exploit resulted in a loss of approximately $223 million. Following a major exploit, the Sui DeFi ecosystem experienced a rapid pause in activity as teams worked to assess and respond to the situation.

At the time, SUI prices declined from $4.19 to $3.62, representing almost a 14% drop.  The event had a broader impact than just prices. SUI’s total value locked (TVL) also significantly decreased.

According to reports, the wallet executed a spoofing attack by deploying fake tokens, such as BULLA, and exploiting pricing curves across DeFi protocols. The Cetus team initially categorized the event as an “oracle malfunction,” a designation that prompted quick evaluation and skepticism from developers and security analysts.

Following the attack, blockchain investigators quickly traced the attacker’s steps. They identified a $63 million USDC transfer from Sui to Ethereum, executed within hours of the exploit.

Furthermore, the vulnerability stemmed from the “addLiquidity,” “removeLiquidity,” and “swap” functions within the smart contracts, which were intended to calculate token ratios and pool values. However, these functions failed to adequately validate inputs when interacting with assets of negligible or zero economic value.

Cetus Offers $6M as Bounty

Meanwhile, on May 23, 2025, the protocol offered a $6 million bounty to the white hat hacker who could recover the stolen ETH. CoinTab reported that Cetus had identified the Ethereum wallet used in the exploit.

Launched in 2023, Cetus plays a critical role in the Sui ecosystem, powering swaps and yield farming. It has a trade volume of over $57 billion and approximately $15 million in accounts. It also has a swap aggregation of liquidity from all key sources within the Sui ecosystem.

Cetus uses a dual-token system (CETUS and xCETUS) to provide sustainable rewards to active users through protocol earnings. The protocol is built on a permissionless architecture. This means all major features and tools are open for use. Any user or app can plug into the protocol at will to build or interact with it.