Cetus offers a bounty of 6 million US dollars to acquire 220 million US dollars of stolen digital assets, while emergency words from the SUI network have triggered concerns about decentralization.
The Sui-Native Decentralized Exchange (Dex) cetus was exploited on May twenty second for cryptocurrency value over $ 220 million. However, Cetus managed to freeze $ 162 million of the stolen agents shortly afterwards.
Since then, Cetus has offered a white hat bonus of as much as 6 million US dollars for the explosion to return the stolen 20,920 ether (Eth) value over 55 million US dollars, along with the remaining of the stolen funds which might be currently frozen on the SUI blockchain.
“In return, you possibly can keep 2,324 ETH ($ 6 million) as a bounty, and we’ll consider the matter to be closed and no further right, pursuing secret services or public measures,” Cetus wrote in a message embedded in a blockchain transaction on May twenty second.
A bounty offer to the hacker. Source: Suivision
However, Cetus will “escalate with complete legal and intelligence resources” if these assets will not be rolled or sent to cryptocurrency mixers and will not be returned quickly.
Ethical hackers who’re searching for a protocol to forestall future exploits is obtainable a white hat bonus.
In April, cryptocurrency hacks rose to 90 million US dollars in April, a rise of 124% in comparison with March, as a hacker digital assets value 41 million US dollars.
Crypto steel in April 2025. Source: Immunefi
In the meantime, the industry continues to be recovering from the biggest crypto hack, during which Bybit Exchange lost over 1.4 billion dollars on February 21, 2025.
SUI takes into consideration the emergency list function to overwrite transactions
In the meantime, the GitHub activity shows that the SUI team has considered to implement an emergency whitelist function with which certain transactions can handle safety controls so as to restore the means which may be connected to the hack.
Mysten, Sui, White List function. Source: Github
“It seems that the SUI team has asked every validator to offer paved code in order that he can take @cetusprotocol Hackers 160 million US dollars away via a TX that shouldn’t be signed,” said Chaofan Shou, software engineer at Solayer Labs.
However, an unpopular SUI engineer said that “Validators who used this, and currently only deny TX, which affects Hacker objects,” he said in a post on May 22.
The step has triggered criticism among the many supporters of decentralization that argue that the power to overwrite transactions contradicts the principles of a decentralized one with permits and not using a network.
Despite widespread criticism within the crypto community, some saw the fast response as an indication of progress and never as centralization.
“This is what the decentralization of the true world looks like. Not only reacts powerless, but reacts and in harmony with the community,” said the pseudonymic crypto -Sluth Matteo and adds that decentralization shouldn’t be about standing while persons are injured. It is in regards to the power to act together while not having permission. “