Sui Community Approves Unlocking Frozen Funds After cetus Exploit
The sui community has voted too unlock over $160 million in frozen assets following a major exploit of Cetus, a key decentralized finance protocol. On May 29, Sui confirmed that validators, representing 90.9% of the total stake, voted âyesâ to move the frozen funds into a multi-sig wallet.
This vote is a crucial step in Cetusâs recovery plan after a $223 million exploit on May 22. The attacker exploited a vulnerability in third-party code, draining multiple liquidity pools and bridging some funds to Ethereum. However, validators managed to freeze $162 million of the stolen assets on Sui.
As part of the recovery, the unlocked funds will be held in a trust account controlled by a multisig untill they can be returned to users. Cetus plans to combine the recovered funds with its treasury and a loan from the Sui Foundation to ensure full reimbursement for all victims.
Sui is treating this exploit as a critical moment for the ecosystemâs security. 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.
While some community members praised Suiâs obvious response, others expressed concerns about freezing wallets in a decentralized system. The vote was open to both validators and individual stakers, whose choices were reflected through their delegated stake.
With the vote finalized, cetus is expected to release a detailed timeline for reimbursements soon. Full repayment is now possible due to the newly recovered funds.
