Cetus Offers Bounty to $223M Hacker in Urgent Bid to Recover Ethereum-Bridged Funds

Cetus Protocol, the decentralized exchange built on Sui, has announced a time-sensitive bounty offer to the hacker responsible for its massive $223 million exploit. The team is hoping to recover critical user funds that were illicitly bridged to Ethereum during the breach.

What happened?
In one of the largest DeFi exploits of the year, a vulnerability in Cetus Protocol was exploited, leading to hundreds of millions in losses. While developers have successfully frozen over $160 million in assets, the remaining funds are still in limbo.

Now, Cetus is reaching out directly to the attacker with a negotiation-based bounty deal—a strategy increasingly used in crypto to encourage ethical resolutions post-hack. The hope is to return the remaining funds while avoiding extended legal battles or further user losses.

This move raises key questions: Will the hacker respond? Can DeFi projects rely on "honor system" bounties in billion-dollar breaches?

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