Cetus Loses $220M in Flash Heist—Offers $6M Bounty in Desperate Recovery Bid

Another day, another crypto bloodbath. Cetus got raided for $220 million in minutes—proving once again that decentralized finance isn’t quite as ’secure’ as the brochures claim.

Recovery mode: The team’s dangling a $6 million bounty for info, because nothing says ’trustless system’ like begging internet strangers to return your money. Classic.

Finance jab of the day: At least traditional banks wait until market hours to get robbed.

What we know

On the 22nd of May, Cetus – a decentralized exchange built on the – fell victim to a massive cyberattack that saw over $220 million in digital assets siphoned off.

Within hours, however, the team, in collaboration with the sui Foundation, managed to freeze $162 million of the stolen funds.

Source: CryptoQuant

By leveraging the decentralized validator network, which chose to block transactions from flagged addresses, the attack was partially neutralized.

The road to recovery

Cetus has laid out a dual-track recovery plan for the remaining stolen funds. The protocol is offering a $6 million white-hat bounty to the hacker in exchange for the SAFE return of the assets.

Source: cetusprotocol.com

The Cetus team is requesting an on-chain vote from the SUI community to approve the recovery of $162 million still frozen.

At the same time, they are working to trace and reclaim assets bridged out, mainly to Ethereum, by collaborating with external partners.

Cetus battles doubt and data woes as recovery stretches on

While Cetus claims to be working around the clock to restore operations, users remain in limbo.

The protocol’s aggregator service is back online, but Core liquidity pools are still undergoing extensive data recovery.

The team says it’s dedicating all resources to fund recovery, negotiating with the hacker, and coordinating a governance vote with Sui validators.

“We are fully committed to doing everything within our power to pursue the maximum possible recovery of affected users’ liquidity funds.”

The team added,

“Cetus will mobilize all available financial resources of the protocol to restore as much as we can, with the ultimate goal of covering user losses to the greatest extent possible.”

Yet, frustration persists due to unclear communication and the absence of concrete timelines. 

Cetus has pledged full transparency, but only after internal alignment is achieved. 

Meanwhile, concerns about compensation and the recoverability of user funds remain unresolved. This is increasing pressure on the team to provide more than just reassurances and deliver tangible results.