The Sui and Aptos based decentralized exchange (DEX), Cetus Protocol, has restarted its platform after recovering $162 million of stolen funds and a $30 million USDC loan from the Sui Foundation.
On May 8, the protocol announced that it is back functioning as usual after a successful community vote on retrieving assets from the attacker’s wallet, which were frozen by Sui validators. Now the protocol possesses a hefty amount of funds—including recovered funds, a USDC loan, and an additional $7 million cash reserve—and it’s ready to be used.
Cetus suffered the exploit on May 22, losing over $260 million in assets at the time. Within hours of the attack, Cetus’ team reached out to the Sui Foundation and managed to freeze approximately $162 million in stolen funds with the help of validators. However, the hacker managed to launder the remaining funds via Tornado Cash.
In a separate blog post, Cetus revealed it has taken various steps, such as patching the vulnerability, fixing all affected pool data, rebalancing assets and pools, and working on a compensation strategy, as well as security audits of smart contracts prior to its relaunch.
Additionally, the Cetus team has also allocated 15% of the total CETUS supply, including the entirety of the team’s remaining unvested tokens, for compensation to affected users.
Although the DEX is restarting its operations, a number of users are stressed and complaining that they are not able to withdraw funds from the pool. Some users are also reporting unfair compensation as they see a significant gap in returned funds.
“My so-called unaffected LP is back, but with a 27% gap. Even with the drop in Sui to $3.19 atm, not sure what’s going on,” wrote a user.
Also Read: $260M Cetus Hack: Sui Freezing Funds Sparks Decentralization Concerns
