After the $223 million security incident, who is supporting the trust return of Sui?

Original | Odaily Daily Report (@OdailyChina)

Author | Dingdang (@XiaMiPP)

On May 22, the decentralized trading platform Cetus in the Sui ecosystem suffered a hacker attack, resulting in a loss of approximately $223 million. This incident had a significant impact on the overall ecosystem, causing panic among users and directly leading to outflows of on-chain funds. According to on-chain data, the total value locked (TVL) in the Sui network declined from a peak of about $2.1 billion to a low of $1.57 billion, a drop of over 25%, putting the entire ecosystem under severe strain.

After the incident, Cetus quickly took emergency measures. With the cooperation of most Sui validator nodes, the Cetus team successfully froze the two main wallet addresses used by the attacker to transfer funds. Meanwhile, Cetus rapidly collaborated with the Sui security team and multiple security auditing agencies to conduct a comprehensive audit of the smart contracts and developed a recovery plan for user assets. In addition, the Cetus team invested all its cash reserves of 7 million dollars and obtained a loan of 30 million USDC from the Sui Foundation for user asset compensation.

On June 8, the Cetus protocol officially resumed operations, reopening all functions including trading and liquidity management. The liquidity recovery level of the affected liquidity pools reached 85% - 99%. Cetus also promised to allocate 15% of the total token supply for compensating affected users, with 5% available for immediate withdrawal and 10% to be unlocked linearly over the next year.

Although this incident had a significant impact on the ecosystem, on-chain data shows that Sui’s TVL is gradually recovering. As of now, the TVL has returned to 1.92 billion USD, close to the level before the incident occurred. This rebound not only indicates that user confidence is returning but also reflects that some protocols are attracting new capital inflows, playing a stabilizing role.

In this “post-disaster recovery” process, four protocols have performed outstandingly in terms of TVL and user growth, namely Momentum, Turbos, Bluefin, and Kai.

Momentum: Growing ve( 3, 3) DEX

Momentum is the first decentralized trading platform on Sui with a native ve(3, 3) mechanism. Through the governance token veMO combined with voting incentives, users can earn a share of the trading fees and protocol incentives by locking assets, encouraging long-term participation and protocol governance. This model originated from Curve and effectively stimulates the enthusiasm among liquidity providers (LPs), token holders, and protocol governance.

Since its launch in March this year, Momentum has rapidly grown in terms of TVL and trading volume. As of now, its TVL has surpassed $89 million, reaching an all-time high, making it one of the most outstanding protocols in the Sui ecosystem. Currently, Momentum’s total trading volume has exceeded $3.6 billion, with cumulative users surpassing 420,000. Recently, Momentum completed a new round of strategic financing led by OKX Ventures, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, further enhancing its ecological expansion capabilities.

Turbos: A Safe Haven in Crisis

Turbos is a DEX that was deployed on the first day of Sui mainnet launch. In terms of architectural design, Turbos emphasizes modular decoupling, with each functional module being relatively independent. This structure effectively reduces systemic risk from a technical perspective. For this reason, during the recent Cetus security incident, Turbos’ contracts did not involve any functions with vulnerabilities, and the entire platform was unaffected.

After the incident, Turbos quickly initiated a self-examination and simultaneously invited several third-party security agencies, including Mysten, OtterSec, MoveBit, and CertiK, to conduct an independent audit. The results showed that the vulnerability did not affect the normal operation of Turbos. More importantly, while other platforms suspended services, Turbos maintained stable operations without any trading interruptions, demonstrating the platform’s technical maturity and security resilience.

According to TVL data, since the stabilization after the Cetus event, the capital inflow speed of Turbos has significantly accelerated. Driven by the recovery of market confidence, several mainstream Memecoins have transferred most of their liquidity to Turbos, including LOFI, reflecting the market’s recognition of its technological stability and security.

In addition to security guarantees, Turbos has recently launched multiple liquidity incentive pools, including SUI-USDC and zero impermanent loss USDT-USDC, further attracting users to participate in liquidity provision and enhancing the platform’s activity.

Bluefin: Focused on on-chain derivatives trading

Bluefin is a protocol focused on decentralized derivatives trading, providing users with financial products such as perpetual contracts. Its product structure relies on on-chain matching and settlement mechanisms, offering high transparency and operational stability. Bluefin’s matching engine optimizes trading efficiency while reducing slippage, making it suitable for mid to high-frequency traders and hedging strategy users.

Currently, the Bluefin platform maintains a relatively stable trading activity and continues to expand its user base and product portfolio, making it an important component of the derivatives market on Sui.

Kai Protocol: Automated Asset Management Platform

Kai is a protocol that provides strategy automation management, focusing on offering users on-chain asset allocation and yield aggregation services. Users can deploy strategy pools to gain features such as automatic reinvestment and risk adjustment, reducing operational complexity.

Kai’s mechanism is suitable for users who wish to achieve stable returns with lower participation, and its strategy portfolio is continuously expanding to cover the investment needs of different risk preferences. Currently, the platform has attracted a group of users who prefer stable investments, and the TVL shows a steady growth trend.

Overall, while the Cetus incident has caused a temporary impact on the Sui ecosystem, it has also become a validation point for the ecosystem’s resilience. The stable growth of Momentum, Turbos, Bluefin, and Kai has not only supported the TVL in the short term but also showcased their comprehensive strengths in mechanism design, security strategies, and user appeal. As the ecosystem recovery progresses and user confidence gradually warms up, Sui is slowly emerging from the shadow of the black swan event and moving towards a new stage.