Cetus Protocol
Last changed 2026-10-10 · Score recalculated — Rescored under Scoring v2, the published formula (avoid.net/scoring): 28 → 55. Problems weighed by who is responsible: incidents the subject suffered −6.4, concerns that are not fraud −6.4, problems around the subject, caused by others −1.6; legitimacy credit long-running +4. Version history →
Why this score
| Every page starts at | 65 |
| Concerns that are not fraud | -6.4 |
| Incidents it suffered (e.g. hacks) | -6.4 |
| Problems around it, caused by others | -1.6 |
| Long-running | +4 |
| Sum | 55 |
Score: 55/100 (kept between 0 and 100)
How scoring works →Summary
Cetus Protocol is a concentrated liquidity market maker (CLMM) decentralized exchange deployed on the Sui and Aptos blockchains. On May 22, 2025, the protocol suffered one of the largest DeFi exploits in history when an attacker exploited an integer overflow vulnerability in its smart contract math library to drain approximately $223 million from liquidity pools. Roughly $162 million was frozen on-chain through emergency validator action by the Sui network, and following a governance vote the protocol relaunched in June 2025 with partial user compensation.
Connected Entities
6 entities · 60 linked investigations- Ethereum→mentioned with→Coinbase(60%)
- KuCoin→mentioned with→Ethereum(60%)
- Cetus CLMM→mentioned with→Sui(70%)
- Cetus CLMM→mentioned with→Ethereum(70%)
- Cetus CLMM→mentioned with→KuCoin(60%)
- Sui→mentioned with→Ethereum(70%)
- Sui→mentioned with→Coinbase(60%)
- Cetus CLMM→mentioned with→Cetus Protocol(80%)
- Cetus Protocol→mentioned with→Cetus CLMM(80%)
- Sui→mentioned with→Cetus Protocol(80%)
- + 4 more
1 submission awaiting moderator review.
Timeline(10 events)
April 2023
MoveBit completes security audit of Cetus Protocol's Aptos deployment; a similar overflow vulnerability is reportedly flagged but not later applied to the Sui deployment.
May 2023
Cetus Protocol raises seed round from OKX Ventures, KuCoin Ventures, NGC Ventures, Animoca Brands, IDG Capital, and others.
February 2024
Cetus Protocol raises strategic round with Sui Foundation investment; protocol establishes itself as leading DEX on Sui.
April 2025
Zellic completes a security audit of Cetus Protocol approximately one month before the exploit; the integer_mate library vulnerability goes undetected.
22 May 2025
Cetus Protocol exploited for approximately $223 million beginning at 10:30 UTC via integer overflow in checked_shlw function. Roughly $60 million bridged to Ethereum; $162 million frozen on Sui by validator emergency action.
22 May 2025
CETUS token falls over 40% from approximately $0.26 to $0.15. Sui ecosystem liquidity severely disrupted; related protocols Kriya, Momentum, and Bluefin identified as sharing the same library flaw and patched.
22 May 2025
Cetus Protocol pauses affected smart contracts. Sui validators coordinate to block attacker addresses on-chain.
29 May 2025
Sui governance vote concludes: 90.9% of validator stake approves transferring frozen $162 million to multisig wallet controlled by Cetus, Sui Foundation, and OtterSec.
8 June 2025
Cetus Protocol relaunches at 03:00 UTC with 85-99% liquidity pool recovery. Protocol backed by $162M recovered funds, $7M treasury, and $30M Sui Foundation loan.
10 June 2025
Compensation token distribution begins: 15% of CETUS total supply allocated to affected users, distributed linearly over 12 months.
Decision Log
- slot 455367644 · hash GQvoMFGDiBKb6rgByk4nEbU1rXM9SNaboDLCW2ibNdTt
- slot 423210396 · hash 6HNHPsjKb9jku5ABjrM2TLB951tZPYf5qhA1VWW3h6Qs
This investigation is cryptographically anchored to the Solana blockchain (2 decisions). 18 of 22 cited source URLs have an Internet Archive snapshot.
model: claude-sonnet-4-6
generated: 5/30/2026, 6:25:04 PM
last updated: 10/10/2026, 6:47:40 PM
4 viewsavoid.net — verified advice for a post-truth world