Sui Network Cetus Protocol Hack Incident: A Dual Game of Technical Vulnerabilities and Governance Trade-offs
Recently, the leading decentralized exchange in the Sui ecosystem, Cetus Protocol, encountered a significant security vulnerability, with hackers exploiting a mathematical overflow flaw to steal approximately $223 million worth of cryptocurrency assets, triggering deep reflections in the industry on the security of smart contracts and the boundaries of decentralized governance.
The core vulnerability of this attack stemmed from a logical flaw in the design of liquidity parameters in Cetus's automated market maker.
This type of attack is similar to 'calculating 1 billion × 1 billion with an 8-bit calculator', where high-order data loss leads to the system misjudging the required number of tokens.
After the incident, the Sui validator network intervened at the consensus layer to freeze $162 million in stolen assets, but this action sparked a controversy over decentralization.
Validators directly ignored transactions from the hacker's address during the trading pool phase; technically, these transactions were entirely valid, but they could not be added to the blockchain due to the lack of validators packaging them; although the freezing action recouped user losses, the community worries that the 'subjective freezing standards' may undermine the censorship-resistant value of the public chain.
This incident reveals the 'emergency paradox' of public chains in extreme situations - if fully decentralized, it cannot respond quickly to user asset losses; if centralized intervention is introduced, it may undermine the core value of the blockchain.
To learn more about cryptocurrency-related knowledge and first-hand cutting-edge information, follow me, and you won't get lost in the crypto world!
