💥 Hot Event: Large-Scale AMM Hack
On the evening of June 22, the crypto community was shocked when Cetus, one of the top AMMs on Sui and Aptos, reported a hack worth up to 2.23 million USD. The shock was not just in the loss amount, but in the fact that the vulnerability did not originate from a smart contract bug, but from the core logic of liquidity protection - something that new generation AMMs were thought to have overcome.
What is really happening with the AMM model that many believed was unhackable?
📊 Data Perspective: Capital Flow and Immediate Consequences
On-chain data shows immediate losses as more than 2 million USDT were withdrawn from Cetus's liquidity pool in less than 3 minutes. The project's TVL dropped over 60% in just half an hour, with Sui transactions urgently suspended. Not only were direct capital losses incurred, but capital also simultaneously "fled" from other AMMs in the Sui and Aptos ecosystem - with total ecosystem TVL rapidly dropping 14% in one night.
- Transaction volume on Cetus plummeted: over 90% of volume lost in 24h.
- TVL on Sui ecosystem decreased from 470 million USD to 377 million USD.
- Social data recorded over 25,000 tweets on June 22, mainly panic, FUD, and discussions about loss risks.
This was not just an isolated incident, but a bottleneck forcing the entire community to re-examine how we understand and assess risks in new-generation AMMs.
🚨 Error Essence: 'Lossless' Logic Problem in New-Generation AMMs
How Did Cetus Operate?
Cetus chose a "concentrated liquidity" approach - similar to Uniswap V3 but with additional "low-slippage" elements to attract large stablecoin volume. The project emphasized limiting impermanent loss and increasing price control incentives through automatic parameters. However, this "automation" inadvertently became a critical weakness: price parameters were manipulated by attackers through flashloan exploits, causing entire system "drained with pools unable to react & oracles updating late, creating opportunities for MEV bots to sweep away liquidity.
�>⚖️ Why Capital Rapidly Withdrew: Old Meta. Declining, Trust Challenged?
The nature of on-chain capital always chooses safe places with attractive incentives and easy exit. Before the,etus was in the top of 3 TVL on Sui, attracting many LPs with outstanding APR of 50-80%; concentrated liquidity made swap fees attractive, with dense liquidity mining rewards.
< p as soon as panic appeared:<>���️ Counterargument: Is It Time to Doubt Every "Meta"?
How to protect capital on AMM? Are monolithic designs truly strong against MEV tactics or just a temporary attention effect?
The's ceasily reminds us of the "liquidity mining war" period early in D: incentives capital massively, but one incident could everything. Some opinions even worry about scam risks, forking models and repeating mistakes - a pattern not rare in crypto cycles.
However difference in 2024 compared to 2021 is that on-chain users are increasingly savrich data and and strongly resistant to FOMO. Users are ready to test, react immediately, capital extremely quickly attention is the valuable asset.
🚀 Beyond Crisis: Do AMM Models Need Further Evolution?
Cetus is just a sign of security challenges, not an end AM. fact, developers are discussing hybrid AMMs - where contracts are both concentrated and ensure decentralized oracle updates; AI applications detecting anomalies or MEV bot protection layers. The future is "composable" AMMs - allowing allowing community voting to adjust parameters or harden contracts by modules.
The "recovery" ability of projects like Cetus depends on transparent handling and is a test of-flow trust in each new meta.
🔎 Conclusion Capital Flow and Trust Must Be Continuously Verified
The Cetus attack is an important turning point: it forces the to community AMM security security must be "publicly audited" continuously, not just relrelying on slogans or reports reports. Attention and trust are the are, cannot be bought just by short-term incentives.
Those tracking DeFi capital flows will realize: every design has trade-offs. Meta must be placed be under continuous community verification. This event is: DeFi is only suitable for those who understand their risks - and ready to move on when when meta changes change. Future AMM trends and models will certainly have to strongly evolve in security and adaptability.
