Sui Foundation Supports Cetus Loan for User Compensation

After experiencing a damaging hack of $223 million, Cetus Protocol has introduced an extensive plan to compensate affected users. This plan involves acquiring a loan from the Sui Foundation and using treasury funds, showing a strong recovery effort in the Sui ecosystem.

Cetus Protocol, the main decentralized exchange (DEX) and liquidity provider on the Sui blockchain, encountered a significant security breach on May 22, 2025. This breach led to the loss of about $223 million in digital assets due to an exploit linked to a vulnerability in Cetus’s smart contract pricing mechanism.

In response to the attack, Cetus promptly halted its smart contracts to prevent further losses. The project collaborated with the Sui Foundation, validators, and other DeFi protocols to freeze $162 million of the stolen funds, although approximately $61 million was moved to Ethereum, complicating the recovery process.

To address the losses suffered by users, Cetus has obtained a loan from the Sui Foundation to ensure full compensation. This move has attracted considerable attention within the cryptocurrency community.

A comprehensive compensation plan for Cetus users is currently undergoing a 7-day voting process involving Sui validators and token holders. The vote, which commenced on May 27 and concludes on June 3, 2025 (UTC), requires over 50% participation of staked SUI and a majority of approving votes to pass.

The Sui Foundation’s assistance has been crucial, not only providing financial support but also releasing code to facilitate the on-chain voting process. Despite sparking debates about decentralization, the actions taken by Sui validators have been defended as necessary to safeguard users.

With $160 million secured and plans for full reimbursement progressing, Cetus’s response could establish a model for handling DeFi breaches. The community’s positive reception of Cetus Protocol’s democratic approach has resulted in a 24% increase in the Said price over the past 24 hours, with the token now trading at $0.1591.