{"id":136608,"date":"2025-05-23T08:25:23","date_gmt":"2025-05-23T08:25:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/cetus-rewards-hacker-with-6m-for-recovery-of-56m-in-stolen-eth\/"},"modified":"2025-05-23T08:25:23","modified_gmt":"2025-05-23T08:25:23","slug":"cetus-rewards-hacker-with-6m-for-recovery-of-56m-in-stolen-eth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/cetus-rewards-hacker-with-6m-for-recovery-of-56m-in-stolen-eth\/","title":{"rendered":"Cetus Rewards Hacker with $6M for Recovery of $56M in Stolen ETH"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"su-note\" style=\"border-color:#e0d5e5;border-radius:3px\">\n<div class=\"su-note-inner su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\" style=\"background-color:#FAEFFF;border-color:#ffffff;color:#333333;border-radius:3px\">\n<p><strong>Key Takeaways:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cetus is offering a $6M bounty for the return of $56M in ETH stolen during a $223M exploit.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sui validators froze addresses linked to the hack, pausing $162M in compromised tokens.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The incident sparked criticism over Sui&#8217;s centralization as token values, including CETUS, crashed.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Cetus Protocol, a \u00a0decentralized exchange\u00a0 built on the \u00a0Sui blockchain\u00a0, is facing a challenging crisis. Earlier this week, the platform was \u00a0exploited\u00a0, leading to a staggering $223 million loss, of which around 20,920 ETH, valued at \u00a0approximately $56.3 million\u00a0, was stolen. In response to this alarming situation, Cetus is taking a proactive approach by offering a \u00a0$6 million bounty\u00a0 to the hacker for the return of the stolen assets.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span id=\"cetus-reaches-out-to-hacker\">Cetus Reaches Out to Hacker<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>In a late-night announcement on X, Cetus revealed that it had identified the \u00a0Ethereum wallet\u00a0 utilized in the attack and reached out to negotiate with the hacker. The message emphasized that the hacker could keep \u00a02,324 ETH\u00a0 (approximately \u00a0$6 million\u00a0) as a bounty if they agreed to return the remainder of the stolen funds. The message, co-signed by data analytics firm \u00a0Inca Digital\u00a0, warned that robust legal and intelligence operations would be activated if the attacker attempted to off-ramp or mix the stolen assets.<\/p>\n<p>The breach occurred due to a vulnerability in Cetus&#8217; smart contracts linked to its \u00a0liquidity pool\u00a0. The attacker drained millions in cryptocurrency, manipulating the assets to swiftly swap them into \u00a0USDC\u00a0 before converting to \u00a0ETH\u00a0. Fortunately, Cetus has reported that the vulnerability has now been \u00a0patched\u00a0, and the platform is undergoing a thorough investigation to prevent similar incidents in the future.<\/p>\n<p>In solidarity with Cetus, the \u00a0Sui Network\u00a0, which serves as the underlying blockchain for the protocol, coordinated with validators to freeze addresses associated with the stolen funds. The Sui Foundation announced that many validators identified the compromised addresses and are currently ignoring transactions on those addresses until further notice. As a precaution, approximately \u00a0$162 million\u00a0 worth of compromised tokens have been \u00a0paused\u00a0 to mitigate further losses.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s.w.org\/images\/core\/emoji\/15.0.3\/72x72\/1f4dc.png\" alt=\"\ud83d\udcdc\" class=\"wp-smiley\" style=\"height: 1em;max-height: 1em\" \/> Dear Sui community, thank you for your patience while our team works on the incident investigation and resolution. <br \/>Since taking the actions indicated in our previous announcement, we have also done the following:<br \/>1. We engaged the broader ecosystem, Sui team, and related\u2026 <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Gs1EWXZ6AD\">https:\/\/t.co\/Gs1EWXZ6AD<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Cetus<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s.w.org\/images\/core\/emoji\/15.0.3\/72x72\/1f433.png\" alt=\"\ud83d\udc33\" class=\"wp-smiley\" style=\"height: 1em;max-height: 1em\" \/> (@CetusProtocol) <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CetusProtocol\/status\/1925653859143172608?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\">May 22, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>While Cetus expressed gratitude for the \u00a0collaboration\u00a0 with DeFi protocols and other stakeholders within the Sui ecosystem, the incident sparked concerns about the \u00a0centralization\u00a0 of the Sui network. Questions arose regarding the network&#8217;s governance, with notable critic \u00a0Justin Bons\u00a0, founder of \u00a0Cyber Capital\u00a0, highlighting the fact that the validators&#8217; ability to censor transactions indicates a \u00a0centralized\u00a0 approach. The network&#8217;s token supply concentration and validator count remain major points of contention.<\/p>\n<p>As a result of the exploit, Cetus&#8217; native token, \u00a0CETUS\u00a0, plummeted by \u00a050%\u00a0, currently trading at \u00a0$0.1714\u00a0 according to \u00a0CoinGecko\u00a0. Other tokens affiliated with the protocol, such as \u00a0LOFI\u00a0 and \u00a0HIPPO\u00a0, likewise experienced significant losses.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span id=\"crypto-lost-1-6-billion-to-hacks-in-q1\">Crypto Lost $1.6 Billion to Hacks in Q1<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>This unfortunate event is part of a broader trend in the \u00a0cryptocurrency\u00a0 landscape. The first quarter of 2025 saw a staggering loss of \u00a0$1,635,933,800\u00a0 across \u00a039 incidents\u00a0, particularly attributed to two significant attacks on centralized exchanges. \u00a0Phemex\u00a0 suffered a loss of \u00a0$69.1 million\u00a0 in January, while \u00a0Bybit\u00a0 was hit far worse, losing \u00a0$1.46 billion\u00a0 in February.<\/p>\n<p>The total losses for the first quarter marked a \u00a04.7x increase\u00a0 compared to Q1 2024, when hackers and fraudsters stole around \u00a0$348,251,217\u00a0. Alarmingly, experts speculate that the notorious \u00a0North Korean Lazarus Group\u00a0 is behind the two most catastrophic attacks, accounting for \u00a0$1.52 billion\u00a0 or \u00a094%\u00a0 of total losses.<\/p>\n<p>The situation surrounding Cetus highlights the \u00a0vulnerabilities\u00a0 that exist within the cryptocurrency ecosystem and the urgent need for enhanced security protocols and governance structures. As discussions about the \u00a0centralization vs. decentralization debate\u00a0 continue to unfold, it&#8217;s clear that the industry must adapt and innovate to secure the trust of its users and investors.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/category\/finance\/\">Finance and Crypto News-10<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Key Takeaways: Cetus is offering a $6M bounty for the return of $56M in ETH stolen during a $223M exploit. Sui validators froze addresses linked to the hack, pausing $162M in compromised tokens. The incident sparked criticism over Sui&#8217;s centralization as token values, including CETUS, crashed. Cetus Protocol, a \u00a0decentralized exchange\u00a0 built on the \u00a0Sui [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":108984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23832],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-136608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}