Sui DEX Cetus Restarts from $220 Million Exploit, Hits Top Ten DEX in Hours

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Sui Protocol’s native decentralized exchange (DEX) Cetus has successfully relaunched once again following a massive $220 million exploit last month. In a major announcement, the DEX also announced that it will be going open-source very soon following its relaunch. The big development is that Cetus is already back in the top-ten DEX by trading volume following this relaunch.

💪 1st stage — back to the TOP 10 DEX list of all chains by daily trading volume. 🌊🌊#Cetus 🐳 pic.twitter.com/jmLLOwUEN0

— Cetus🐳 (@CetusProtocol) June 9, 2025

Last month, on May 22, an attacker exploited Cetus’ main liquidity pools, stealing a total of $220 million. In response, the protocol swiftly froze $162 million of the stolen assets. Before the attack, Cetus was experiencing significant growth, with trade volumes surpassing $5 billion in both April and May.

During the last weekend of June 7, the Cetus team announced that it would be moving towards being completely open source. Besides, it also revealed a new white bounty program, thereby encouraging “collective technical and security contributions.”

Sui’s Cetus Protocol Relaunches With 85-99% Recovery Rate

As part of its relaunch, the Cetus team stated that it has addressed the software vulnerability that enabled the hack. The fixes included patching the exploit, restoring pool data to accurate pricing, and conducting thorough security audits of all code updates and contract upgrades.

To replenish affected liquidity pools, Cetus utilized $7 million from cash reserves, secured a $30 million USDC loan from the Sui Foundation, and allocated some of the recovered assets from the attacker.

However, despite these efforts, the team couldn’t manage to fully restore all pools. According to the team, recovery rates currently range between 85% and 99%, depending on the extent of the drain each pool experienced during the attack.

However, the Cetus team stated that they are still chasing funds at the moment and have launched legal proceedings with multiple jurisdictions, along with several law enforcement agencies “actively involved” in it. The team said:

“The attacker ignored our previous white hat offer and has begun attempting to launder assets — a futile and traceable act. We are highly confident that successful arrest and recovering the remaining assets is only a matter of time.”

Cetus Has Its Own Compensation Plan for the Victim

To compensate affected users, Cetus has allocated 15% of its native token supply, CETUS, for the recovery plan. Of this, 5% will be distributed immediately, while the remaining 10% will be unlocked gradually each month over the next year, starting on June 10.

However, the CETUS token continues to trade under selling pressure, trading at $0.1193 as of press time, with daily trading volumes dropping 17%. Following the hack, Cetus extended a white hat bounty of up to $6 million to the attacker, urging the return of the stolen 20,920 Ether ETH $2 489 24h volatility: 1.1% Market cap: $300.54 B Vol. 24h: $11.73 B , valued at over $55 million.