Drift Protocol hacked

April 1, Drift Protocol suffered $285M theft via admin key breach. Hacker drained 41M JLP, 51.6M USDC, 125K WSOL, and 164K cbBTC in 1 hour.

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🚨 ZachXBT's 'Circle Inaction Archive' alleges $420M+ in illicit USDC went unfrozen since 2022. The $232M Drift Protocol hack saw funds bridged via CCTP for 6 hours during US business hours. Lazarus Group (DPRK) funds allegedly sat for 4.5 months. Yet 16 legitimate business wallets were blacklisted in hours for a sealed NY civil case. Why the speed for courts, not criminals?

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Perfect timing from the @EFDevcon team Huge thanks for featuring @QuillAudits_AI and sharing our journey, as we started from India and are securing Web3 (and Ethereum) for teams across the globe. With @EFDevcon coming to Mumbai, it means a lot to see founders and builders highlighted in this way. Q1 2026 already saw $160M+ lost in hacks → and just last week @DriftProtocol got hit with a $285M exploit. Most hacks today aren’t fancy smart contract bugs anymore. They’re OPSEC failures: compromised keys, phishing, multisig compromises, and weak access controls. Smart Contract Audit + Web3 OPSEC & MultiSig Audit is quickly becoming the new gold standard. Security is the foundation that allows innovation to survive, and that’s where our work matters. this is exactly why @QuillAudits_AI exists

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🚨 Massive hack on Drift: $280M stolen via North Korean social engineering! 💥 Attackers infiltrated the Solana team for six months, posing as traders to compromise keys. SOL drops, DeFi trust shaken. Ready to strengthen your security? #CryptoNews #Solana ⚠️

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Drift Protocol drains over $200 million, a record DeFi hack this year. One data point: the clock is ticking on security upgrades across platforms, not just audits, to stop the next breach. #DeFi #Crypto #Bitcoin #Ethereum #Altcoins #Web3

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so many takes on drift situation while, again, the most likely outcome is it being an inside job with a elaborate story and involvement of 3rd party actors "to help find the bad guys" for plausible deniability - irrelevant protocol with way too much TVL (sus) - always intended to be extractive VC slow rug anyways - even have meme token asian woman CEO, she probably doesnt even know what a solana or a perp even is - likely been money laundering chinese funds all this time - zero prospects for the future, no one really cares - wind it down and let the dirty money disappear - ?????? the answer is always the same. unless its the largest protocol in its niche, its not worth having significant money in it that you cant afford to lose occams razor says drift have hacked themselves and its all a elaborate ruse, DPRK as the perfect boogeyman cos they obviously cant be held responsible or even comment on the issue i estimate the amount of "hacks" in the space being simple inside jobs at around 50%

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This is a very tough read for me. I have spent years trying to help the victims of the Sundae Swap fraud lawsuit, where they received Sundae tokens as part of a legal settlement. Victims lost tens of millions of dollars. By the time they got the Sundae tokens they were entitled to, they were worthless. (From team/VC dumping) I can appreciate that since the lawsuit, Pi has made meaningful contributions with his Sundae Labs team, albeit with generous financial support from the Cardano treasury and affiliated third parties. I'm fairly certain the bad behavior wasn't Pi's idea, but he still made assurances to community members, went along with it, and I definitely hold him accountable for his part. I have tried to have productive conversations with Pi at in person events, and through third parties....but he still has me blocked. It seems that its simply easier for him to play the victim than to have an honest conversation about his role in what happened. I'm not trying to rehash the past, but to see this kind of post...where the OP seems to believe he's some kind of victim or savior reads as egregious to me and warrants a response. The victims of the lawsuit deserve this at the very least. There is never any mention of the thousands of people that were harmed by Sundae Swap. OP's focus on his own financial outcome is especially offensive, considering many innocent retail participants had high six-figure losses as a result of Sundae Swap assurances. The mental gymnastics OP must go through to rationalize the guilt/accountability away and to replace with a victim/savior complex is simply unreal. The cognitive dissonance must be very painful for him, which is why he goes to such great lengths to try and paint himself as some kind of martyr or savior. I realize the political risk in responding here. Many choose to go along with this false narrative. I choose the truth and righteousness. I'm glad to be a part of CSWAP where incentives are aligned with community. I simply could not live with myself if I behaved like OP. The lack of humility is mind blowing. If I made a mistake that led to the financial damage for thousands of people, I would be trying to make it up to them....not ignoring them, and whining about nothing. I will not leave X/twitter. I will continue to be transparent with the community. I will continue to be honest, even in the face of backlash. This is how real trust is earned.

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This is my post-mortem on @DriftProtocol : - They had a tough road trying to build a perps DEX on Solana, for reasons now apparent to most - The team members often communicated some of the challenges they were facing with onboarding traders to this uncomfortable environment – and change on the Solana side has been slow. I’d guess they’d be much higher in perps DEX rankings if not for those issues. - They were a big target (of their own success) and the victim of a sophisticated attack that many are likely vulnerable to at some level - They owned it and shared the details for all of us to learn and be better I hope they find a way to recover.

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So from public posts, we know that there were a few deep pocketed supporters of @DriftProtocol ‘s success. I mean, it was Solana’s best hope to compete on perps at one point. So one could assume those same whales made some pretty hefty deposits as well to bootstrap liquidity, etc – which is now stuck. Ugh. (Which sucks for all btw – and always hurts the smaller net worth guys more than the whales) But doesn’t it seem like there should be more widespread reports of loss on the TL from way more people? Especially given the large amount? Makes me wonder if it was mostly concentrated with those few supporters. Whoever has done forensics on the wallets can maybe some light here on if it was an 80/20 type situation?

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Crypto Hacks Rose 96% in March with $52M Losses March saw a sharp 96% increase in #crypto hacks, resulting in total losses hitting $52M. incidents like the Solana ecosystem #DeFi exploit highlight ongoing security risks across #blockchain networks despite growing market maturity.