Sui Foundation Takes Hands-Off Approach as Community Votes on $162M Hack Recovery
Decentralization in action—or abdication of responsibility? The Sui Foundation refuses to intervene as token holders debate how to claw back $162 million from a protocol exploit.
Governance drama unfolds: The vote puts the ’auto’ in DAO, with the foundation insisting the community must steer its own recovery. Meanwhile, crypto Twitter erupts in finger-pointing—because nothing unites a blockchain like a nine-figure hack.
Bonus cynicism: At least the hackers didn’t need KYC to pull this off—unlike the victims now begging for reimbursement.
Sui validators coordinated emergency freeze
The SUI validator network responded quickly to the security breach by implementing emergency measures to prevent further asset drainage. Over one-third of validators by stake weight ignored transactions from two addresses believed connected to the attack. This effectively immobilized approximately $162 million worth of digital assets.
On Wednesday, the Sui validator community acted quickly to freeze $162M of the stolen funds. Here’s how that happened:
– Each validator has a configuration file that allows it to ignore transactions from a specific address.
– Adding addresses to this file is at the discretion… https://t.co/pVLTItN0MH
The freezing mechanism operates through individual validator configuration files that allow nodes to exclude specific addresses from transaction processing. Each validator maintains discretionary control over this function, which can be activated or reversed independently based on individual risk assessments or compliance requirements.
While validators successfully prevented the attacker from bridging a substantial portion of the stolen funds off the Sui network, approximately $60 million in assets had already been moved before the freeze took effect. Cetus has mentioned it is collaborating with Inca Digital, security firms, and international law enforcement agencies to recover the remaining compromised funds.
The Sui Foundation shared two conditions for supporting the community vote process. First, the foundation will maintain complete neutrality regarding the outcome. They stressed its role as a facilitator rather than a decision-maker for community governance. Second, Cetus must publicly commit to deploying all available financial resources toward full customer restitution.
“This is an extraordinary request in response to extraordinary need – Cetus’s customer funds are at stake,” the Sui Foundation stated. Cetus has expressed willingness to respect whatever decision emerges from the community vote.
They noted that “no one can make this decision unilaterally.” The protocol upgrade vote will involve major network participants, including validators and SUI token stakers. Cetus had also offered a $6 million bounty to the hacker to retrieve the funds.
