Sui-based Haedal Protocol suspends haeVault feature following Cetus’ $223m exploit

Sui-based liquid staking protocol Haedal has temporarily suspended its haeVault feature, which relies on the Cetus liquidity pool, after the LP provider suffered a $223 million exploit.

In a recent post, the staking protocol published an official statement responding to the recent exploit. Because the protocol’s haeVault feature relies on underlying Cetus liquidity pools, Haedal has decided to temporarily disable the feature to prevent any further incidents related to the hack.

“User safety remains our top priority. haeVault will resume once all risks are resolved and the environment is secure,” wrote Haedal in its post.

The liquid staking protocol claimed that with the exception of haeVault, all its other on-chain features and funds are “completely safe” following the Cetus hack. Haedal Protocol also stated that the team is currently communicating with Cetus as well as other Sui (SUI) ecosystem projects and are prepared to offer their full support to help Cetus in the aftermath of the exploit.

As the main LP provider for Sui, the ecosystem suffered immensely due to the Cetus exploit. Over the course of 24 hours, tokens like AXOL, HIPPO, and SQUIRT lost almost all their value after the attacker drained Cetus’ liquidity pool.

Price chart for SUI in the pas 24 hours of trading, May 23, 2025 | Source: crypto.news

The Sui token itself has gone down more than 4.7%, slipping from a $4.18 daily high to $3.85. It still sits nearly 28% below its latest all-time high at $5.35, which occurred in early January 2025.

Most recently, Cetus Protocol declared that it is offering a $6 million bounty in an attempt to get the attacker to hand over stolen funds. The hacker is being asked to return 20,920 ETH ($55.7 million) and all frozen assets on Sui. In exchange, they get to keep around 2,324 Ethereum and immunity from legal action.

However, the Cetus team said the offer is time-sensitive and if the hacker off-ramps or puts the stolen funds through mixers, then the deal will be called off.

Read more: Sui-based Cetus Protocol offers $6M bounty to hacker after $223M exploit

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