SUI has seen a steep 42.82% plunge in trading volume following a major security breach on Cetus, according to data provided by TradingView.

The incident occurred May 22, 2025, when Cetus, the leading decentralized exchange and liquidity hub on the SUI blockchain, was reportedly hacked, causing a ripple effect across the SUI ecosystem.

The attacker allegedly drained approximately $223 million from Cetus Protocol, although the team managed to freeze $162 million shortly after. In an attempt to recover the remaining funds (including 20,920 ETH), the Cetus team is now offering a $6 million white hat bounty to the perpetrator.

The hack had a devastating impact on the SUI ecosystem's liquidity pools. Several ecosystem tokens suffered catastrophic losses, with many dropping over 75% in value. Notably, tokens like Lombard Staked BTC (LBTC) and AXOLcoin (AXOL) nearly collapsed in price. The top 15 worst-hit tokens all lost more than three-quarters of their market value on Cetus.

SUI price down $5.22

SUI itself wasn't spared. The token has fallen 5.22% since the incident and is currently trading at $3.64. This drop has erased part of the impressive 23% gain it posted earlier in May.

The token’s strong earlier performance was linked to growing institutional partnerships aimed at tokenizing real-world assets globally — a development that had boosted the asset's utility and investor sentiment.

However, the recent breach, combined with a broader crypto market pullback sparked by renewed tariff concerns, has put downward pressure on SUI’s price. The failed attempts to break above the $4.25 resistance zone may have triggered profit-taking from short-term traders, further dragging the price below the 20-day EMA at $3.70.

If this bearish momentum continues and the price stays below this level, the SUI/USDT pair could slide toward the 50-day SMA at $3.00.

While the long-term fundamentals around SUI remain promising due to ongoing adoption initiatives, the fallout from the Cetus hack and weakening technical indicators suggest a cautious short-term outlook.