Many people are puzzled. Sui officials claimed that after @ CetusProtocol was hacked, the validator network coordinated to "freeze" the hacker's address, recovering $160 million. How was it achieved? Is decentralization a 'lie'? From a technical perspective, try to analyze: The part of cross chain bridge transfer: After a successful hacker attack, immediately transfer some USDC and other assets to other chains such as Ethereum through the cross chain bridge. This part of the funds cannot be recovered because once it leaves the Sui ecosystem, validators are powerless. The portion still on the Sui chain: A considerable amount of stolen funds are still stored in Sui addresses controlled by hackers. This portion of funds has become the target of 'freezing'. According to the official announcement, "a large number of validators have identified stolen fund addresses and are ignoring transactions on these addresses. ——How to implement it specifically? 1. Transaction filtering at the validator level - in simple terms, validators collectively 'pretend to be blind': -The verifier directly ignores transactions with hacker addresses during the mempool stage; -These transactions are technically completely effective, but they won't be packaged and put on the chain for you; -Hackers' funds are thus' confined 'in their addresses; 2. The key mechanism of Move object model - the object model of Move language makes this "freezing" feasible: -Transfer must be on chain: Although hackers control a large amount of assets in Sui addresses, to transfer these USDC, SUI and other objects, they must initiate transactions and be verified by validators through packaging and confirmation; -The verifier holds the power of life and death: if the verifier refuses to pack, the object will never move; -Result: Hackers nominally "own" these assets, but in reality, they have no way to do so. Just like you have a bank card, but all ATMs refuse to serve you. The money is in the card, but you can't withdraw it. With the continuous monitoring and intervention of SUI verification nodes (ATM), SUI and other tokens in hacker addresses will be unable to circulate. These stolen funds now seem to have been "destroyed", objectively playing a "deflationary" role? Of course, in addition to temporary coordination by validators, Sui may have pre-set a rejection list function at the system level. If this is indeed the case, then the process may be: the relevant authority party (such as Sui Foundation or through governance) adds the hacker address to the system deny_list, and the verifier executes according to this system rule, refusing to process transactions with blacklisted addresses. Whether it is temporary coordination or execution according to system rules, most validators need to be able to take unified actions. Obviously, the power distribution of Sui's validator network is still too centralized, with only a few nodes able to control key decisions across the entire network. The problem of excessive concentration of validators in Sui is not an isolated example of PoS chains - from Ethereum to BSC, most PoS networks face similar risks of validator concentration, but Sui has exposed the problem more clearly this time. ——How can a network that claims to be decentralized have such strong centralized "freezing" ability? What's even more concerning is that Sui officials have stated that they will return the frozen funds to the pool, but if the verifier really refuses to package the transaction, theoretically these funds should never be moved. How did Sui achieve the return? This further challenges the decentralized nature of the Sui chain! Could it be that, apart from a few centralized validators refusing transactions, the authorities even have system level super permissions to directly modify asset ownership? (Sui needs to provide further details on the 'freeze') Before disclosing specific details, it is necessary to discuss the trade-offs of decentralization: Is sacrificing a little decentralization necessarily a bad thing for emergency response intervention? If there is a hacker attack and the entire chain is inactive, is it necessarily what the user wants? What I want to say is that people naturally do not want money to fall into the hands of hackers, but what worries the market more is that the freezing criteria are completely "subjective": what constitutes "stolen funds"? Who will define it? Where is the boundary? Freeze hackers today, who will be frozen tomorrow? Once this precedent is set, the core anti censorship value of public chains will completely go bankrupt, inevitably causing damage to user trust issues. Decentralization is not black and white, Sui has chosen a specific balance point between user protection and decentralization. The key issue lies in the lack of transparent governance mechanisms and clear boundary standards. At present, most blockchain projects are making this trade-off, but users have the right to know the truth, rather than being misled by the label of 'completely decentralized'.