Drift Secures $150M From Tether, Links Payouts to Trading

Drift Protocol announced a structured recovery plan backed by roughly $150 million in combined support, with about $127.5 million coming from Tether, after a $280 million exploit hit its Solana-based perpetuals exchange.

The team said it worked with law enforcement and third-party forensics firms to investigate the breach and design the recovery framework and a safer relaunch. Funding and reimbursements will be phased in and tied to the platform’s trading volume and revenue as activity returns.

Capital support will be introduced progressively and is intended to align with platform performance. As trading resumes, exchange revenue will be used to help restore user balances and support the platform’s operations and scaling needs.

Under the relaunch plan, Tether’s USDT will replace Circle’s USDC as the primary settlement asset on the exchange. Drift said the change affects about 128,000 users and more than 35 ecosystem teams, which will transition to USDT-based trading to reconfigure liquidity around the new core stablecoin.

Drift posted on X: “We told our community we would find a path to recovery. This is that path. This is the first step toward making users whole over time and toward building back stronger than where we were before.” The protocol said the plan is intended to restore funds over time while it rebuilds liquidity and implements security upgrades.

Blockchain tracing linked the exploit to transfers of USDC that were bridged from Solana to Ethereum using Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol across hundreds of transactions. Observers noted a roughly six-hour window during U.S. business hours when intervention was theoretically possible.

Circle’s chief strategy officer, Dante Disparte, responded that the company does not freeze assets on its own discretion and will act only under legal compulsion. He urged lawmakers to pass legislation that would give the company clearer legal authority to act and called for shared accountability on security rather than relying solely on issuers.

Drift said the recovery plan was developed with help from Tether and other backers. The protocol emphasized that outside funding will supplement exchange revenue as trading ramps up, allowing gradual restitution while the venue implements security upgrades and prepares for a relaunch.