Cetus Protocol exploited for $260M; attacker used fake tokens to drain SUI, USDC.
Hacker laundered $60M via Ethereum; wallet holds 12.9M SUI worth $54M.
SUI price drops 15% post-hack; smart contracts paused, Binance offers support.
Sui’s largest decentralized exchange and liquidity provider, Cetus Protocol, has fallen victim to a major exploit. The platform lost assets valued at approximately $260 million. The SUI token price declined by approximately 15% as a direct consequence of the security breach.
The token's current trading price stands at approximately $3.65 according to the latest update. The crypto community displays great concern about the incident while closely observing the developing situation.
Massive Breach Exposes Vulnerabilities
On-chain data firm Lookonchain identified the attacker’s wallet as “0xe28b50,” which currently holds over 12.9 million SUI tokens. The stolen tokens are worth an estimated $54 million. Moreover, the hacker converted a significant portion of these assets into USDC and then transferred approximately $60 million to the Ethereum blockchain. There, the funds were used to purchase ETH, signaling a strategic laundering process.
Cetus Protocol responded quickly to the incident. The team has paused all smart contracts to prevent further damage. According to initial investigations, the attacker used fraudulent tokens like BULLA to manipulate internal pricing mechanisms.
By distorting price curves and liquidity pool reserves, the hacker was able to siphon real assets such as SUI and USDC. The manipulation exploited vulnerabilities in the liquidity pool calculations, allowing the attacker to drain substantial funds with minimal input.
CZ Vows Support While Cetus Investigates
Shortly after the exploit was detected, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao offered his support to the SUI ecosystem. He posted on X that Binance is actively assisting with the situation. He acknowledged the seriousness of the incident and urged the community to remain secure while investigations continue.
At 3:52 AM PT, the Cetus development team pinpointed the breach timeline when they confirmed the issue's identification time. The team works alongside blockchain analysts and relevant stakeholders to track stolen assets while evaluating the total impact of the breach. New information will become available during the ongoing investigation process. In the meantime, users have been advised to remain cautious and avoid interacting with paused contracts.
Price Dips Despite Recent Bullish Momentum
Before the attack, SUI had shown upward momentum, boosted by the launch of xBTC, a wrapped Bitcoin token on OKX. The token had briefly touched a weekly high earlier in the day. However, news of the breach quickly reversed this trend. In the last four hours, SUI has dropped more than 10%. Despite the plunge, the token has retained some gains from earlier trading activity, showing a 4.91% increase over the past 24 hours.
Initial data indicated an outflow of nearly $200 million, which added to the market’s anxiety. Panic spread across investor circles as the scale of the exploit became clearer. This incident has raised concerns about the security frameworks used in decentralized exchanges and their ability to respond swiftly to sophisticated threats.
