The Sui blockchain community has overwhelmingly approved a governance vote to recover and redistribute over $162 million in stolen funds from decentralized exchange Cetus, marking a major step forward after one of DeFi’s largest exploits in 2025.
Governance Vote Gains 90% Support
On May 29, an onchain governance vote passed with 90% approval, greenlighting a plan to unfreeze and repurpose funds that were previously stolen and then blacklisted during a $223 million hack on May 22. These funds, which had been frozen by Sui validators shortly after the breach, are currently held across two attacker-controlled addresses.
“This is a remarkable show of trust and collective action by the Sui ecosystem,” stated the Cetus team in a post-announcement update.
Details of the Fund Recovery Plan
Under the approved proposal:
- Validators will transfer the $162M in frozen funds to a multisignature trust co-managed by:
- Cetus
- Blockchain audit firm OtterSec
- The Sui Foundation
- A dedicated compensation contract will be deployed to reimburse affected users.
- Emergency recovery tools will be integrated into Cetus’ Concentrated Liquidity Market Maker (CLMM) to better manage future incidents.
Cetus Platform to Restart in a Week
According to Cetus, the platform aims to resume full operations within a week, including:
- Data restoration
- Restarting the upgraded CLMM contract
- Resuming all paused DeFi functions, such as liquidity provider (LP) pools
The incident occurred due to a vulnerability in Cetus’ CLMM model, which was quickly patched after the exploit. In response, the team also offered a $6 million white-hat bounty to recover 20,920 ETH (worth $56.3M) that had been bridged to Ethereum by the attacker.
Strengthened Security and Community Trust
This event, while damaging, has prompted enhanced protocol-level security, governance participation, and stronger partnerships across the Sui ecosystem. The rapid response from validators and the governance-led recovery process showcase the resilience of DeFi when supported by community action.
Cetus’ full recovery could serve as a blueprint for how decentralized protocols can respond to large-scale exploits with transparency and speed.