Cetus offers $5 million reward for hacker identification amid centralization issues related to Sui freeze.
On May 23, the Cetus Protocol announced a $5 million incentive for information leading to the identification and capture of the individual responsible for stealing $223 million from its decentralized exchange within the Sui network.
This initiative, revealed on May 23, collaborates with Inca Digital, a cybersecurity firm, and will be financed by the Sui Foundation if the information proves useful.
Those providing tips must email the name, whereabouts, and evidence of the suspect with the subject line “Cetus lead.” The DEX stated that any legal actions would be dropped and the reward rescinded if the thief returns the assets and agrees to a prior settlement offer.
This announcement arrives amidst ongoing concerns about centralization related to Sui, particularly after $162 million was frozen by numerous validators out of the total 114.
Whitehat offer paves the way
Shortly before the public announcement of the bounty, Cetus initiated an on-chain transaction to propose a different arrangement to the perpetrator operating on Sui and Ethereum (ETH) blockchains.
This proposal entailed a $6 million retention fee, approximately equivalent to 2,324 ETH, in return for 20,920 ETH and the release of all assets frozen on Sui.
The team reported tracking the attacker’s Ethereum wallets and is currently collaborating with U.S. federal agencies, FinCEN, the Seychelles Police, selected defense partners, prominent exchanges, and bridge operators.
The ultimatum indicated that any laundering attempts would lead to heightened global law enforcement involvement.
According to the protocol’s report on X from May 22, the attacker exploited a vulnerability in Cetus’ pricing system, causing all smart contract operations to be paused immediately. Analytics indicate that the exploit resulted in $223 million worth of tokens being taken.
Out of that amount, $61 million was transferred to Ethereum through bridges, while the remaining $162 million was locked by validators on the Sui network.
Cetus has not specified when regular trading will be restored or if any code modifications will occur prior to reactivating the contracts.
Validator decisions ignite decentralization discussions
As per its block explorer, Sui comprises 114 active validators. On May 22, Sui noted that a significant majority reached a consensus to halt any transactions from the attacker’s wallets shortly after the incident occurred.
This collective action effectively stopped the transfer of the remaining $162 million and rendered the tokens inaccessible on-chain.
Gautham Santhosh, co-founder of Polynomialfi, shared on X that the cryptocurrency community is now considering the advantages of swift asset protection against the potential consequences of validators being able to freeze specific accounts at their discretion.
While he emphasized that the procedure required consensus and was not arbitrary, the situation has altered the foundational security assumptions concerning layer-1 blockchains.
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