Cetus Protocol Bleeds $223M After Overflow Bug Exploit—Another ’Code Is Law’ Wake-Up Call

DeFi’s latest nine-figure heist wasn’t a shadowy hacker—just math gone wrong. A post-mortem reveals how an unchecked overflow vulnerability let attackers drain Cetus like a blockchain ATM.

The exploit: Attackers manipulated liquidity pool calculations until the numbers literally overflowed, bypassing security checks. The result? A $223 million withdrawal slip signed by faulty smart contracts.

While Cetus developers scramble patches, crypto VCs are already spinning this as ’stress-testing the ecosystem’—because nothing screams ’robust financial infrastructure’ like hackers exploiting grade-school arithmetic errors.

Cetus exploit triggered sell-off

Cetus, a leading DEX on the SUI network, was hacked in the early hours of May 22, triggering one of the largest losses in the Sui ecosystem to date. Initial investigations claimed the incident stemmed from an “oracle bug.”.

The exploit led to over $223 million in losses across various liquidity pools, sparking a broad sell-off in related tokens, including SUI and CETUS, which dropped over 40% in the hours after the breach. Memecoins and smaller market cap tokens native to the network saw even steeper losses, with some plunging by over 90%.

In response, the Sui Foundation coordinated with validators to freeze around $163 million of the stolen funds. Cetus has also announced a $5 million bounty for information that identifies those responsible.