Cetus Protocol Hacked for $200M+ – SUI Price Crashes as $60M USDC Moved to Ethereum

Cetus Protocol, a decentralized exchange built on the Sui blockchain, has reportedly fallen victim to an exploit that may have siphoned off more than $200 million in digital assets.

The breach, which was first flagged by pseudonymous Web3 researcher COMDARE3, has triggered widespread panic across the Sui ecosystem, with many tokens plunging in value.

Market data from DEX Screener shows a brutal selloff, with assets like Lombard Staked BTC (LBTC) and AXOLcoin (AXOL) collapsing nearly 100%.

Top Tokens on Cetus Suffer Huge Losses

The top 15 tokens on Cetus all suffered losses of over 75% in the past 24 hours.

The protocol’s smart contracts have since been paused, according to a post on the official Cetus X account.

🚨Alert Announcement 🚨

There was an incident detected on our protocol and our smart contract has been paused temporarily for safety. The team is investigating the incident at the moment. A further investigation statement will be made soon. We are grateful for your patience.

— Cetus🐳 (@CetusProtocol) May 22, 2025

Funds from the alleged exploiter’s wallet include $52 million in SUI, nearly $20 million in wrapped USDT, $4.9 million in Haedal Staked SUI (HASUI), and a large stash of lesser-known tokens such as Toilet (TOILET).

On-chain analysts estimate the attacker has begun moving tens of millions to Ethereum, including a reported $60 million in USDC.

Despite the scale of the incident, the Cetus team has attempted to downplay the exploit.

In statements on Discord, team members referred to it as a “bug,” a characterization that has drawn backlash from compliance experts.

Onchain Lens, a blockchain analysis firm, corroborated the severity of the incident, noting that the attacker “gained control of all SUI-denominated pools” and began moving stablecoins shortly afterward.

Cetus (@CetusProtocol), the leading DEX and primary liquidity provider on $SUI, has reportedly been hacked.

The attacker gained control of all SUI-denominated pools, exploiting over $200M, and has also started moving $USDC.https://t.co/Qh3cx2ymZM pic.twitter.com/cbv3d6KHLx

— Onchain Lens (@OnchainLens) May 22, 2025

SUI, the native token of the Sui blockchain, is down sharply following the attack, as confidence in the network’s DeFi infrastructure takes a major hit.

Crypto Lost $1.6 Billion to Hacks in Q1

In the first three months of 2025, the crypto ecosystem lost a whopping $1,635,933,800 across 39 incidents, according to the blockchain security platform Immunefi.

The report claimed, “Q1 2025 marks the worst quarter for hacks in the history of the crypto ecosystem.”

Most of that was the result of only two hacks of two centralized exchanges. Phemex suffered a $69.1 million loss in January, while Bybit lost $1.46 billion in February.

Subsequently, the total number of losses in the first quarter marks a 4.7x increase compared to Q1 2024. At that time, hackers and fraudsters stole $348,251,217.

Notably, experts assume that the infamous North Korean Lazarus Group is behind the two largest attacks. They stole $1.52 billion, or 94% of total losses.