Cetus is offering a $6 million white hat bounty in an effort to recover $220 million worth of stolen digital assets, while the emergency response from the Sui network has raised concerns about decentralization.
The decentralized exchange (DEX) based on Sui, Cetus, was attacked on May 22, resulting in a loss of over $220 million in cryptocurrency. However, Cetus successfully froze $162 million of the stolen funds shortly thereafter.
Cetus then offered the attackers a white hat bounty of up to $6 million in exchange for the return of 20,920 stolen Ethereum (ETH), valued at over $55 million, as well as the remaining frozen stolen funds on the Sui blockchain.
"In exchange, you can keep 2,324 ETH ($6 million) as a bounty, and we will consider this matter closed, without taking further legal, intelligence, or public action," Cetus wrote in a message embedded in a blockchain transaction on May 22.
However, if these assets are transferred or sent to a cryptocurrency mixer and not returned in a timely manner, Cetus will "fully utilize legal and intelligence resources to escalate."
The white hat bounty is a reward offered to ethical hackers who seek out protocol vulnerabilities to prevent future attacks.
Cryptocurrency hacking incidents surged to $90 million in April, with 15 incidents occurring, a 124% increase from March when hackers stole $41 million in digital assets.
Meanwhile, the industry is still recovering from the largest cryptocurrency hack, with Bybit exchange losing over $1.4 billion on February 21, 2025.
Additionally, GitHub activity shows that the Sui team has considered implementing an emergency whitelist feature that would allow certain transactions to bypass security checks, possibly to recover funds related to the hack.
"It seems the Sui team is asking each validator to deploy patch code so they can take the $160 million from the Cetus hacker through unsigned transactions," said Chaofan Shou, a software engineer at Solayer Labs.
However, an unnamed Sui engineer told Shou, "Validators are postponing the deployment of this feature; currently, they are only rejecting transactions involving the hacked assets," he stated in a post on X on May 22.
This move has sparked criticism among decentralization advocates, who argue that the ability to override transactions contradicts the principles of a decentralized, permissionless network.
Despite widespread criticism in the crypto community, some believe that a quick response is a sign of progress rather than centralization.
"This is what decentralization looks like in the real world. It's not just about being powerless, but about responding quickly and aligning with the community," said a pseudonymous crypto detective named Matteo, adding that decentralization "is not about standing by when people are harmed, but about the ability to act collectively without permission."
Related: Sui Public Chain DEX Cetus Suspected of Being Hacked: Potential Loss Exceeds $200 Million
Original article: “Cetus Offers $6 Million Bounty After $220 Million Hack, Sui Faces Decentralization Controversy”
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