The decentralized cryptocurrency exchange (DEX) Cetus, built on the Sui blockchain network, stated that of the $220 million stolen in the May 22 hacking incident, $162 million has been frozen.
According to the Cetus team, the DEX is working with the Sui Foundation and other entities within the ecosystem to recover the remaining funds. The Sui Foundation has also confirmed:
"Many validators identified the addresses holding the stolen funds and will ignore transactions from these addresses until further notice. The Cetus team is exploring ways to recover these funds and return them to the community."
The Cetus hacking incident is one of the similar events affecting crypto and Web3 in the first half of 2025. Cybersecurity remains a major issue in the crypto space, and many industry executives are calling for the sector to self-regulate and build stronger defenses, or face stricter regulatory scrutiny.
On May 22, Cetus DEX was hacked, believed to be caused by a vulnerability in the smart contract code, with approximately $223 million of user funds stolen.
According to the Extractor Web3 security tools team, $63 million of the stolen funds has been bridged to the Ethereum network.
The Extractor team also identified a wallet address ending in "AF16" that the attacker used to launder approximately 20,000 Ether, worth about $53 million.
The asset recovery and freezing actions coordinated by different projects, platforms, and validators in the Sui ecosystem have sparked various reactions in the crypto community.
"This is good news for the victims, but if only 114 validators can arbitrarily freeze wallets, then this is a significant issue for the network's censorship resistance. Sui is not decentralized at all," a user wrote.
