Cetus Protocol, the largest decentralized exchange (DEX) and liquidity provider on the Sui network, has been drained of $260 million worth of tokens in an apparent hack, according to crypto sleuth Lookonchain.
The Cetus team has paused the smart contracts and is actively investigating, it said in an X post. According to early analysis, the attacker used spoof tokens like BULLA to exploit broken price curves and reserve calculations.
They then added near-zero liquidity to manipulate internal LP state and repeatedly removed real assets like SUI and USDC without depositing anything meaningful.
Cetus confirmed the incident on X, saying the contract has been paused “for safety” and that a detailed statement will follow.
CETUS is down 40% in the past few hours, while Sui-based memecoins like BULLA and MOJO have dropped over 90%.
UPDATE (May 22, 12:00 UTC): Updates headline and story with additional details.
