- Attackers exploited weaknesses in Cetus Protocol smart contracts on Sui, leading to $200 million in stolen funds.
- Major Sui tokens fell 76% to 97% in value within an hour following the attack.
- The attacker converted funds to USDC stablecoin and moved $61.5 million to Ethereum, with $164 million remaining in a Sui wallet.
- Cetus paused its smart contracts and announced an ongoing investigation, while experts say the exploit involved oracle manipulation.
- Despite the breach, Sui‘s native token price rose by 2.2% in the last 24 hours.
Attackers exploited vulnerabilities in the smart contracts of Cetus Protocol, the largest decentralized exchange on the Sui blockchain, resulting in $200 million stolen from its liquidity pools. The incident caused several leading Sui tokens, including Lofi, Sudeng, and Squirtle, to lose as much as 97% of their value within one hour. The exploit took place recently and led Cetus to pause its contracts to prevent further losses.
Security firm Cyvers stated that the attacker used spoof tokens to manipulate price calculations within Cetus pools, extracting real assets such as those in the SUI/USDC pool. The stolen assets were converted primarily into the USDC stablecoin. Of the funds, $164 million are held in a Sui wallet, and $61.5 million have been sent to Ethereum, according to research and data provided by PeckShield and current wallet trackers.
Deddy Lavid, CEO of Cyvers, explained that attackers manipulated the “oracle”—a service providing outside data to smart contracts—letting them distort reported token prices and drain funds. The Cetus team announced on social media that its protocol was paused for safety during the ongoing investigation.
Leaked Discord messages cited by Lavid describe the incident as an “oracle manipulation attack.” Social media users have questioned the team’s initial explanation, but experts say oracle weaknesses can let attackers trick price feeds and take advantage of exchanges. The exploited stablecoin, USDC, is issued by Circle. Industry analysts such as ZachXBT have criticized stablecoin issuers for slow responses to freezing funds linked to such attacks.
Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao posted support for Sui, writing on X that his team is helping the project. So far, 46 Sui tokens have experienced double-digit percentage losses, but according to CoinGecko data, Sui’s main token was up 2.2% over the last day.
✅ Follow BITNEWSBOT on Telegram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X.com, and Google News for instant updates.
Previous Articles:
- XRDegen Launches Advanced NFT Marketplace on Radix Blockchain
- HSBC Launches Tokenised Deposit Service in Hong Kong with Ant
- Hedera Unveils Hiero SDK Collaboration Hub for Open Contribution
- Bitcoin Soars Past $112,000 Amid Bold ‘Big Print’ Predictions
- FIFA Partners With Avalanche to Launch Blockchain-Powered NFT Platform
