What really matters now for Sui isn’t decentralization—it’s trust.
Not vague narratives. Not ideology. But real, tangible trust—from the people who actually matter.
1. Decentralization is a goal, not the starting point
Let’s be honest: the whole "decentralized vs centralized" debate is a distraction right now. As I said yesterday: decentralization is a destination, not the launchpad.
Every great mission needs a strong core team to make the right calls early on. That’s not anti-community—it’s anti-chaos. "Public opinion" can be valuable, but it’s often full of noise. And when every second matters, noise kills momentum.
2. Who actually matters?
In this moment, the voices that truly matter are the ones with real skin in the game:
People who locked capital into Sui,
Took market risk,
Believed in this ecosystem and put real money behind it.
Let’s be real. A lot of the people screaming about decentralization… have no capital on-chain. Sorry, but your takes don’t carry the same weight. And worse, they’re blurring the focus.
3. The real decision is simple: Should LPs get their funds back?
That’s the question. Nothing more, nothing less. Yes or no.
Everything else—voting mechanism, implementation details—is just the bridge. If the current proposal is to put it to a vote, let’s proceed with that.
4. My vote? 100% YES.
I’m not just saying this as a builder. I’m saying it as someone who lost nearly $4M providing liquidity (BUCK/USDC and BUT/SUI).
But more importantly, I want people who trusted this chain to know they’re not abandoned. That someone’s watching out for them.
If they can recover their funds, they’ll know they’re not just exit liquidity—they’re part of something worth staying in.
To those saying “this is too centralized”: Would you use a chain just because it’s decentralized? Or do you use it because it feels safe, open, and rewarding?
5. DeFi has never been about “absolute decentralization”
The value of DeFi is in its openness. In giving regular people—users, builders, dreamers—a shot at something usually reserved for the elite.
A certain level of centralization is necessary to protect users, builders, and investors. If you're more worried about whether a hacker can cash out… I’m sorry, but your motivations deserve scrutiny.
Sui never branded itself as a “hacker chain.” Yes, the hacker "played by the code"—but so did the protocol by freezing assets. You can’t have it both ways.
6. Let’s get back to first principles
The single most important thing right now is to protect the people who believed in us with real dollars. To make sure our supporters have the means—and the will—to keep backing us as we grow.
Decentralization will come. But trust and survival come first.
As someone building on Sui since day zero, I’ve seen us grow through FUD, doubt, and silence. No airdrop, no community? Look at this community now—stronger than ever.
What didn’t kill us made us tougher. So to every SUI stakeholder who has a vote: Make the choice that will keep this ecosystem alive and thriving.
Final thought
@CetusProtocol didn’t run away. They’re facing the situation, proposing solutions, and letting the community vote.
That’s what mature protocols do.
No one wanted this to happen. But they’re doing everything they can to make it right. Let’s give Sui—and Cetus—the space and support to rebuild stronger.
On Wednesday, the Sui validator community acted quickly to freeze $162M of the stolen funds. Here’s how that happened:
- Each validator has a configuration file that allows it to ignore transactions from a specific address.
- Adding addresses to this file is at the discretion of each individual validator, and can be reversed at any time.
- More than ⅓ of validators by stake chose to ignore transactions from the two addresses they believed to be connected to the attack, effectively freezing the funds.
- The ability of an individual validator to ignore transactions from a specific address is not unique to Sui–any validator in any network can choose to do this, such as to operate within their individual risk tolerance or to comply with law.
- Sui validators acted quickly enough to freeze some (but not all) of the stolen funds, worth approximately $162M at the time of the freeze, before the attacker attempted to bridge them out.
- Freezing is intended as a temporary, emergency measure to slow down an attack and give the victim leverage to negotiate with the attacker. It served precisely this purpose in the Cetus attack. Unfortunately the attacker has not responded to outreach from the Cetus team.
Earlier today, Cetus called for a community vote on a protocol upgrade to return the frozen funds, without rolling back chain history or reversing transactions. This is an extraordinary request in response to extraordinary need–Cetus’s customer funds are at stake. After consideration, we support their call for an on-chain vote on two conditions:
1) We will abstain from the vote and remain neutral on the outcome – our role is to design and facilitate a process that will reflect the will of the Sui community at large. We will share design details and code soon.
2) Cetus must publicly commit to marshalling all of its financial resources to recover all funds and return them to customers until everyone has been made whole.