opensourcefinance

In a dramatic comeback, Cetus Protocol, the leading decentralized exchange (DEX) on the Sui blockchain, has officially restarted operations and is making a bold pivot to an open-source model. This move follows one of the largest exploits in DeFi history, where attackers siphoned off over $220 million from its liquidity pools.

💥 The Exploit That Shocked Sui

On May 22, Cetus was hit by a sophisticated attack targeting a vulnerability in its CLMM (concentrated liquidity market maker) smart contracts. The flaw involved an integer overflow that allowed the attacker to manipulate pricing mechanisms.

📉 Estimated damage: $220M – $223M

⛓️ Frozen funds: $162M recovered on-chain

⏱️ Response time: Sui validators froze attacker wallets within 1 hour 20 minutes

🔁 A Swift and Strategic Relaunch

The Cetus team acted fast. Here's how they rebooted the platform:

💸 $7M from protocol reserves

🤝 $30M USDC loan from the Sui Foundation

🔁 Recovered assets from frozen funds

💡 Recovery rates per pool now range between 85%–99%

🔐 Security Overhaul + Going Open-Source 🌐

Cetus isn't just patching holes—it’s transforming its foundation:

✅ All vulnerable contracts audited and patched

📂 Codebase to be open-sourced for community audits

🧑‍💻 Launch of a white-hat bounty program

🛡️ Long-term roadmap includes continuous third-party audits and on-chain monitoring

💰 User Compensation Plan

The protocol has announced a compensation program for affected users:

🎁 15% of total CETUS token supply allocated to victims

5% unlocked immediately

10% released monthly over the next year, starting June 10

📉 CETUS token has seen a ~12% dip, now hovering around $0.11

⚖️ Legal Action & Community Support

⚖️ Cetus is pursuing multi-jurisdictional legal action and working with law enforcement

🧠 A $6M white-hat bounty is up for grabs for returning the remaining ETH and USDC

🫱🏼‍🫲🏽 Coordinated response by Cetus, Sui validators, and the Foundation shows strong DeFi governance

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🚀 What This Means for DeFi

This event underscores key lessons:

🔎 Focus 📌 Insight

Security First Open-sourcing the code invites transparency and faster bug discovery.
Resilience Fast recovery and pooled support from the ecosystem proved vital.
User Protection A well-structured compensation plan shows maturity in DeFi governance.
Community Trust Involving the community and being transparent is critical post-crisis.

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📅 What to Watch Next

⏳ June 10: CETUS token unlocks begin for victims

👨‍💻 Open-source code release and bounty details

🔍 Ongoing legal updates and fund recovery progress

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💬 Cetus has turned a historic crisis into an opportunity for growth, transparency, and evolution. The road ahead may still be challenging, but the DEX
has reemerged stronger and smarter—proving once again that the DeFi world doesn’t back down. #CetusProtocol #SuiBlockchain #DeFiSecurity #OpenSourceFinance #CryptoRecovery $SUI

📅 November 16 | New York, United States
Tension escalates once again in the most controversial case in the crypto ecosystem. U.S. federal prosecutors have officially requested that the judge not acquit Roman Storm, the developer of Tornado Cash, the cryptocurrency mixer accused of facilitating large-scale money laundering. According to CoinDesk, the government insists that Storm is not an innocent programmer caught up in a political fight: he is, according to them, a conscious actor who allowed criminal groups and sanctioned entities to take advantage of the protocol to hide billions.

📖CoinDesk reports that prosecutors filed a forceful brief arguing that the judge should not acquit Roman Storm of the charges he faces for his role in the operation of Tornado Cash. The defense previously requested an early acquittal, arguing that the government is attempting to criminalize code writing and punish a developer for actions he did not directly control. But the Justice Department's response was firm: the case, according to them, is not about code, but about conduct.
In their filing, prosecutors insisted that Roman Storm played an active role in creating and maintaining a system that “predictably and repeatedly” allowed the laundering of funds linked to North Korea-backed hackers, including the notorious Lazarus group. The government argued that Tornado Cash was not a simple autonomous protocol: it included elements of control, updates, governance decisions, and operations managed directly by its developers. Therefore, they argue that Roman Storm “knew exactly what he was facilitating.”
The defense, for its part, argues that the government is reinterpreting how the protocol works to fit its accusations. Roman Storm's lawyers emphasize that Tornado Cash is decentralized software, published as open source, and that their client did not have the ability to prevent malicious users from interacting with it. They attempted to have the judge dismiss the charges before trial, but prosecutors responded that there is sufficient evidence to proceed.
This case has sparked a deep debate throughout the crypto ecosystem. For many analysts, the future of on-chain privacy—and possibly all open-source software related to cryptography—is being put on trial with the Tornado Cash case. The government's position suggests that publishing tools that can be used for crimes could become a criminal liability, a precedent that worries developers, academics, and digital rights activists.
CoinDesk notes that the case remains one of the most watched of the year, especially after one of the co-creators, Alexey Pertsev, was convicted in Europe under different standards. Roman Storm's fate now depends on the judge's analysis of whether the protocol constitutes simply code or whether prosecutors can prove that there was criminal intent behind its design and maintenance.

Topic Opinion:
There is concern that criminalizing open source sets a precedent that severely limits innovation and research in privacy. Criminal liability should be based on actions, not tools. However, it is also clear that governments cannot ignore that mixers such as Tornado Cash have been used for illicit activities.
💬 Do you think Roman Storm should be held responsible for how third parties used his code?

Leave your comment...
#TornadoCash #RomanStorm案 #Developers #OpenSourceFinance #CryptoNews $BTC