The Sui community has voted to unlock over $160 million in frozen assets following a major exploit of Cetus, a leading decentralized finance protocol on the network.
In a May 29 post on X, Sui (SUI) confirmed that validators representing 90.9% of the total stake voted “yes” in an on-chain governance proposal to move the frozen funds into a multi-sig wallet. The vote is a critical step in Cetus’s (CETUS) recovery plan after a $223 million exploit rocked the protocol on May 22.
The community vote was initiated after Cetus requested protocol-wide support to recover and return assets that were frozen on-chain following the hack. The attacker had exploited a vulnerability in third-party code to drain multiple liquidity pools, later bridging a portion of the funds to Ethereum (ETH). Validators managed to freeze $162 million of the stolen assets on Sui before more damage could be done.
As part of the recovery plan, the unlocked funds will be held in a trust account controlled by a multisig until they can be returned to affected users. Cetus has committed to combining the recovered funds with its treasury and a loan from the Sui Foundation to ensure all victims are fully reimbursed.
Although the flaw was in Cetus’ code, not the Sui network itself, Sui is treating the exploit as a critical moment for the ecosystem’s security model. In response, it announced a $10 million initiative to improve protocol-level audits and formal verification tools. Sui is also expanding its bug bounty program to cover major protocols with high total value locked.
Sui’s transparent and community-driven response has been praised by some community members, while others continue to express concerns about freezing wallets in a supposedly decentralized system. The vote was open to both validators and individual stakers, whose choices were reflected through their delegated stake.
With the vote now finalized, Cetus is expected to release a detailed timeline for reimbursements. Compensation efforts are set to begin soon, with full repayment now possible due to the newly recovered funds.
