Drift Protocol, the Solana perpetuals exchange, is targeting a June 2026 return after a $285 million hack on April 1, backed by a $147.5 million recovery package led by Tether.
TRM Labs identified the April 1 attack as the largest DeFi exploit of 2026. Mandiant's forensic investigation attributed the breach to a North Korean state-linked threat group, per Drift's June 3 recovery update. The attackers spent roughly six months embedded inside Drift, posing as a quantitative trading firm before executing the drain, per CoinDesk.
Tether package targets user losses
On April 16, Drift announced a deal totaling up to $147.5 million: $127.5 million from Tether and $20 million from co-investors. The package is structured as a revenue-linked credit facility with ecosystem grants and loans to designated market makers.
A dedicated recovery pool will target approximately $295 million in total user losses, funded quarterly from trading revenue and partner capital.
Drift will switch settlement from USDC to USDT
Tether's participation also changes Drift's market structure. Drift will replace Circle's USDC with USDT as its settlement asset on relaunch, with the team positioning itself as the largest USDT-based perpetuals exchange on Solana.
Protocol changes remain tied to audit timing
Drift's codebase has previously been audited by Trail of Bits, Neodyme, and OtterSec, per Drift's June 3 recovery update. Drift also hired Noah Prince, formerly Head of Protocol Engineering at Helium, as its new Head of Protocol. Former Gauntlet team members are overhauling the liquidation engine and refining funding-rate and market parameters.
Drift's TVL stood at approximately $5.4 million on June 27, per DefiLlama, against a peak of $1.1 billion in October 2025. The June 3 update did not give a confirmed go-live date, noting that further timing detail would follow audit completion.
