The Sui Foundation has announced it will not participate in the upcoming on-chain vote regarding the recovery of $162 million in frozen assets tied to the recent Cetus protocol hack. The vote will determine whether a protocol upgrade should be implemented to restore the funds—without rolling back or reversing the Sui blockchain’s transaction history.
Emergency Freeze and Community Governance
Following the breach, Sui validators took coordinated emergency action, freezing the stolen assets by excluding specific addresses linked to the attacker. This decentralized safeguard is controlled through each validator’s configuration file, allowing them to independently ignore malicious transactions. As a result, the network successfully immobilized most of the compromised assets, although $60 million had already been moved prior to the intervention.
Cetus has since formally requested a protocol-level upgrade to return the frozen funds. The proposal is now heading for a community vote involving SUI token stakers and network validators.
Sui Foundation Sets Conditions, Declares Neutrality
The Sui Foundation, while overseeing the network’s growth and security, emphasized its neutral stance on the governance decision, citing the importance of decentralized protocol governance. According to its statement, the Foundation will support the vote only under two conditions:
- Complete neutrality on the outcome — the Foundation will not vote or influence the decision.
- Full financial transparency and restitution commitment from Cetus — ensuring any recovered funds go directly toward repaying users.
“This is an extraordinary request in response to extraordinary need – Cetus’s customer funds are at stake,” the Sui Foundation said in its official announcement.
Cetus Collaborates with Authorities
Cetus, for its part, has expressed willingness to abide by the community’s decision, regardless of the outcome. The team has also offered a $6 million bounty to the hacker and is currently working with Inca Digital, blockchain security experts, and international law enforcement to trace and retrieve the remaining stolen assets.
What’s at Stake?
This governance vote will serve as a critical test of Sui’s decentralized framework—balancing community control, protocol integrity, and emergency responses in high-stakes security incidents. If approved, the protocol upgrade would restore access to user funds without compromising the blockchain’s immutability or setting a broad precedent for rollback-based recoveries.
Stay tuned to TheCoinInfo for updates on the Cetus recovery vote and other breaking developments in decentralized governance.
