Cetus DEX: $200 Million Exploit on Sui Blockchain Sparks Investigation

The Sui blockchain ecosystem is reeling from a major incident involving Cetus, a decentralized exchange (DEX), with initial reports suggesting a staggering loss of over $200 million in digital assets. The incident, flagged by Web3 researcher COMDARE3 on X, reveals a potential exploit resulting in significant value depletion across multiple assets listed on Cetus.

COMDARE3’s post highlighted drastic price drops in several tokens, with assets such as Lombard Staked BTC (LBTC) and AXOLcoin (AXOL) experiencing near-total value loss within 24 hours. Analysis of DEX Screener data indicates that the top 15 affected assets suffered losses exceeding 75% of their value.

An address suspected to belong to the exploiter currently holds a significant amount of digital assets, including substantial holdings of Sui (SUI), Haedal Staked SUI (HASUI), Toilet (TOILET), and wrapped USDt (USDT), among others. While the official Cetus X profile reported an incident and subsequent smart contract pause, concerns remain regarding the nature and extent of the breach.

The official Cetus statement is being met with skepticism from blockchain analysts and compliance firms like AMLBot, who point to the suspicious speed of large-scale fund transfers to Ethereum and question the characterization of the event as a mere ‘bug’ rather than a full-scale hack. Onchain Lens also reported the attacker’s success in seizing control of SUI-denominated pools.

The situation is rapidly evolving, and the exact details surrounding the incident remain under investigation. We will continue to update this post as further details emerge.