Drift Secures $148 Million in Funding to Recover from Exploit and Transition to USDT

Following a significant exploit that resulted in the loss of over $270 million in client assets, Drift Protocol has announced plans to relaunch with Tether's USDT as its new settlement layer, backed by a funding package of up to $147.5 million from Tether and its partners. The package, which includes a revenue-linked credit facility, ecosystem grants, and loans to market makers, aims to support user recovery and reboot the platform as a USDT-based perpetual futures exchange on Solana. Previously, Drift utilized Circle's USDC as its settlement layer. A portion of the trading revenue will be allocated to a recovery pool to cover roughly $295 million in user losses over time. The exploit, which occurred on April 1, was carried out by a North Korea-linked group that had infiltrated Drift Protocol by posing as a quantitative trading firm for approximately six months. The incident led to a loss of about 70% of the value of Drift's governance token, DRIFT. The funding package is structured to provide a pathway for Drift to restore user funds and resume operations, with Tether also planning to fund fee reductions and user incentives tied to the transition to USDT, as well as extend liquidity support to designated market makers.