Cetus Protocol, a decentralized exchange on the Sui and Aptos blockchains, relaunched on June 8, 2025, just 17 days after suffering a $223 million exploit. Here is a detailed account:
Recovery of funds: The protocol recovered around $162 million worth of funds. Validators froze the funds on Sui shortly after the hack, and they were eventually returned to the protocol.
Measures for restart: The Cetus team obtained a $30 million USDC loan from the Sui Foundation and used $7 million of its own reserves. Affected liquidity pools were restored to at least 85% of their initial value. The remaining compensation will be provided in the form of Cetus tokens over 12 months according to a linear unlock schedule. To provide predictability to users, 15% of Cetus tokens will be allocated to clearing contracts, with 5% available immediately upon restart and 10% to be unlocked linearly over 12 months starting June 10, 2025.
Response to the attacker: Cetus continues to legally pursue the attacker, who ignored the protocol’s attempts to negotiate and has begun attempting to launder the stolen assets.
Pre – restart preparations: Cetus identified and patched the vulnerability that led to the exploit, thoroughly audited the protocol, and rebalanced all affected liquidity pools.
The restart of the Cetus Protocol marks an important step in the recovery of the Sui ecosystem, and the initial community response has been positive.
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