tl;dr
Sui Network is investing $10 million in ecosystem-wide security improvements following a $223 million exploit targeting Cetus Protocol, a decentralized exchange on Sui. The funds will support smart contract audits, bug bounty programs, formal verification tools, and collaboration with developers to ...
Sui Network is committing $10 million to enhance ecosystem-wide security following a $223 million exploit on Cetus Protocol, a decentralized exchange built on the Sui blockchain.
The exploit originated from a bug in Cetus’s custom math library, not the Sui blockchain or Move language, underscoring the shared security responsibility Sui is now promoting.
Security measures include funding smart contract audits, bug bounty programs, formal verification, and collaboration with developers to strengthen dApp security and reduce future vulnerabilities.
The Cetus attack manipulated liquidity positions through an arithmetic overflow vulnerability, resulting in $162 million of stolen assets being frozen by Sui validators. Approximately $60 million was bridged to Ethereum before the freeze.
Following the incident, Sui’s total value locked (TVL) plunged from $2.1 billion to $1.5 billion, reflecting a nearly 10% drop in the price of SUI token and dampened market sentiment.
Controversy arose over a proposed on-chain vote to return frozen funds to Cetus, raising concerns within the community about validator power, governance centralization, and parallels to Ethereum’s 2016 DAO crisis.
Cetus and the Sui Foundation have collectively offered $11 million in bounties to identify the attackers, including a $6 million white-hat bounty from Cetus and a $5 million reward from Sui Foundation.
This high-profile exploit highlights the critical need for proactive and ecosystem-wide security initiatives as Sui matures as a Layer 1 blockchain, emphasizing shared accountability and developer engagement.
Sui is prioritizing verified open-source libraries and security education to bolster resiliency across its ecosystem, reflecting a strategic shift from platform-only responsibility to a more collaborative approach to safeguarding users and assets.