Bounty’s offer to recover stolen funds from the Sui-based Decentralized Exchange (DEX) Cetus closely resembling a successful approach used by a Solana project three years ago.
It turns out that Cetus shared the same development team such as Crema Finance, a Solana-based project based in Solana that suffered a $ 9-million hack in 2022 but recovered most of the funds by talking to its hacker. Today, the cetus relies on the same approach.
Cetus asks hacker to return all but $ 6 million, or 2,324 ether (Eth), of stolen funds in exchange for a promise not to pursue legal action. The protocol lost $ 223 million in an exploitation on May 22.
Bounty size brought backlash from users, with plenty of calling for a formal payment plan instead. Many community members argue that even if the funds are recovered, most of the damage has It’s over – Especially among the token holders of the cetus, which collapsed the value following the incident.
Meanwhile, SUI validators are also under the fire for their role in freezing funds. The move aims to help recovery, but critics say it exposes the risks of centralization to the network.
Sui’s Cetus Devs has Phantom exchanges with Solana
A similar negotiation approach used by the Cetus team at SUI successfully worked years ago to recover funds for the crema. Solana project has not been posted on its X account since March 2023, and now see the trading platform bale -no quantityBut it still doesn’t finish well for the hacker.
Crema suffered a Approximately $ 9-million hack in 2022. Similar to the case of the cetus, Crema Hacker is offered by a deal To restore funds while maintaining $ 1.6 million in exchange for not reporting law enforcement attacks.
The hacker is believed to have been caught and sent to jail. In April 2024, the US attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York punished Shakeeb Ahmed for three years in prison for hacking two separate cryptocurrency exchanges. One was identified as Nirvana Finance, while the other was unnamed.
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The case hack details of the unnamed exchange, along with the exact exploitation date and the terms of the agreement.
Norbert Bodziony, founder of the nightly app, claimed that the Cetus team was behind Crema Finance.
Bodziony declined to reveal how he found the cointelegraph relationship but added that the connection was “commonly known” in the circles of the SUI developer.
Cointelegraph reached Cetus to confirm the connection between the two projects, but the team did not respond by publication.
The Cointelegraph has since learned that both projects have been established by Henry Du.
I -saved the cetus; Centralize the Sui
Sui’s validators are together -sa That -block transactions from hacker addressesEffectively freezing $ 162 million of stolen SUI funds. Around $ 63 million were -bridged in Ethereum before these controls were implemented.
Although coordinated efforts were effective in preventing non -perishable funds, the cryptocurrency community criticized Sui for being overly centralized.
“Sui’s validators are fighting to conclude the TX of the hacker today! Does this centralized Sui? The short answer is yes; what is important why? The ‘founder’ owns most of the supply and only has 114 validators!” Justin Bons, founder of Cyber Capital, write In X.
As Bons taught, SUI has only 114 validators – fewer than the more established peers of the contract contract. Ethereum has more than 1 million validators, while Solana has 1,157.
Meanwhile, members of the SUI community defend the move, focusing on how real-world decentralized chains should work.
“Decentralization is not about standing up while people are hurting, it’s about the power to act together, without the need for permission,” Says A member of the SUI community.
Related: WLFI credentials under fire after SUI cooperation
Following the hack, SUI developers have created code for a suggested function That will allow specific transactions to avoid all checking and safety checks by adding them to a whitelist.
While operating can be used to help recover stolen funds, it also increases concerns about centralized control and the erosion of decentralization. The code is ultimately not combined and does not live on the network.
Sui and Cetus Backlash compares recent hacks
Cetus exploitation has noticed ongoing security challenges at the Defi while increasing deeper questions around holding rocks in alleged decentralized networks such as SUI.
Hacker’s $ 6-million offer reflects the playbook it used in Crema-but at this time, the crypto community does not forgive. In cetus tanking, confident fractured and validator freezing funds, critics ask if SUI decentralization looks more than reality.
The debate on decentralization is not unique to Sui. When bybit Lost $ 1.4 billion in a February hack linked to North Korean state actorsSecurity experts and users urged platforms such as Thorchain and Exch to block funds.
In that case, thorchain Received some backlash for not enteringWhich is exactly the opposite of what Sui is criticizing today.
So far, the hacker has not accepted the Cetus’ offer. Two Ethereum Wallets tied to exploitation still holds more than $ 60 million in ETH, including No movement At the time of writing. The sui addresses Stay paralyzed.
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