Cetus Protocol announced a time-sensitive bounty of $6 million in ETH for the hacker who exploited their liquidity pool smart contracts, leading to over $200 million in asset theft. The company has identified the attacker’s Ethereum wallet and is pursuing negotiations to recover the stolen funds. Funds were diverted from Cetus’ protocol into USDC, then converted to ETH, and partially bridged off of Sui blockchain. Cetus collaborated with Inca Digital to send a direct message to the hacker demanding the return of 20,920 ETH (~$56.3 million) plus all assets on frozen Sui wallets. A bounty of 2,324 ETH (~$6 million) is offered as an incentive for the hacker to return funds and facilitate a closure of the incident. If funds are off-ramped or laundered, legal action will be initiated. Cetus also confirmed that the vulnerability has been patched and additional security measures are being implemented. This hack underscores the ongoing challenge of securing DeFi projects while maintaining innovation.