# Sui community passes vote to repay $162M to Cetus exploit victims

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/sui-passes-governance-vote-to-recover-162m-cetus-funds
Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/Sui-community-passes-vote-to-repay-dollar162M-to-Cetus-exploit-victims?index=0x683b3b75644db15c969ab31e892efc77db3bcc6a8addd15c60b43676d4340e55c64eb089
Submitted by misha on 2025-05-31 UTC, 2 upvotes, 1 comment

## Summary

Sui validators approved a governance proposal to return $162 million in frozen assets linked to the Cetus decentralized exchange exploit, a key step toward full user repayment. The Cetus exploit took over $220 million in digital assets on May 22, and validators froze $162 million of those funds shortly after. In a governance vote concluded May 29, 90.9% voted in favor, 1.5% abstained and 7.2% did not participate, according to the network's governance page. Cetus aims to complete its full recovery and restart in about one week, according to a May 29 X post.

## Article

Sui validators approved a governance proposal to return $162 million in frozen assets linked to a recent exploit of the decentralized exchange Cetus, marking a key step toward full user repayment.

Cetus was exploited for over $220 million worth of digital assets on May 22, but validators managed to freeze $162 million of the funds shortly after the incident.

In a governance vote concluded on May 29, Sui validators passed the recovery proposal with 90.9% voting in favor, 1.5% abstaining and 7.2% not participating, according to the network’s official governance page.

“With this result, the impacted funds will be moved to a multisig wallet and held in trust until they can be returned to users according to the plan led by Cetus,” Sui said in a May 29 X post.

Sui community passes vote for frozen Cetus funds. Source: Sui

Related: Metaplanet’s Bitcoin ‘premium’ nears $600K per BTC

The decision follows debate within the crypto community over the role of validators in freezing onchain funds.

While some decentralization advocates criticized validators’ ability to freeze the funds, other industry watchers praised the rapid response as a step forward against growing crypto industry exploits.

The community vote is part of a broader recovery plan that includes using Cetus’s treasury and an emergency loan from the Sui Foundation.

Related: Hoskinson promises audit, is ‘deeply hurt’ by $600M Cardano treasury claims

Cetus aims for restarts, full recovery within a week

Cetus expressed gratitude for the rapid community support, sharing its recovery roadmap after the vote concluded.

First, Sui validators will implement the upgrade to transfer the frozen funds to the Cetus multisignature wallet, then Cetus can initiate the upgrade for its emergency recovery pool and full data restoration.

“Cetus is aiming to complete its full recovery and restart in approximately one week,” the protocol wrote in a May 29 X post, adding:

“A dedicated compensation contract is under development and will undergo auditor review before deployment.”

After the full protocol restart, all liquidity providers in the affected pools will regain access to their recovered liquidity, while remaining losses will be “claimable through the compensation contract,” it added.

## Comments

**misha**: > A $200 million-plus exploit targeting Cetus, a decentralized exchange on the Sui network, has reignited debate over decentralization in blockchain protocols after Sui validators collectively froze $162 million of the stolen funds. Some decentralization advocates called foul, criticizing Sui validators’ ability to pause fund transfers on the blockchain as a sign of centralization. Other investors applauded the rapid response and coordination against the attackers.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/sui-vote-on-162m-frozen-cetus-funds-sparks-decentralization-debate-finance-redefined-may-23-30