In the wake of a substantial $295 million theft executed by North Korean-linked hackers from its decentralized exchange platform Drift Protocol on April 1, the Solana-based entity has unveiled an extensive recovery plan. This strategy is designed to compensate users who suffered losses and to relaunch the platform as a security-enhanced exchange.
The attack, confirmed by Mandiant’s forensic analysis, involved North Korean state-affiliated actors and led Drift to halt all essential operations like trading and borrowing to mitigate further unauthorized transactions.
Currently, around 130,259 ETH (approximately $293 million) is concentrated in four monitored Ethereum wallets flagged across exchanges. Two transfers using the Wormhole bridge have been stalled by its governor until late July, effectively immobilizing funds mid-transfer. Additionally, Circle has frozen three stablecoin transfers totaling $3.36 million worth of USDC.
Drift intends to issue a ‘recovery token’ to each affected wallet, with each token equivalent to one dollar of verified losses. The recovery pool, initially seeded with roughly $3.8 million in stablecoins from the protocol’s remaining assets, will expand through quarterly exchange revenue and up to $127.5 million pledged by Tether, along with a possible $20 million from strategic partners.
Victims can start redeeming tokens when the fund surpasses $5 million; however, early redemption results in forfeiting future claims on any additional pool growth until it matches the total losses of $295,426,725.97 from the exploit.
Drift aims to bolster security by deploying a new program at a fresh address with entirely rotated keys, implementing timelocks for critical administrative actions, and eliminating the durable-nonce attack vector that facilitated the April 1 breach.
Targeting a Q2 2026 relaunch as a streamlined perpetuals DEX on Solana, Drift plans to integrate leading market makers and leverage a $20 million Tether market-making facility from launch day. A public bounty program offering 10% of successfully recovered assets has also been initiated in partnership with crypto exchange Bybit.
“The Drift team is taking deliberate actions to ensure users are compensated and that Drift reestablishes itself as the premier perpetuals DEX on Solana,” stated the exchange. “Internal restructuring decisions have been made for a lean operation focused solely on recovery and relaunch. The framework is set, ecosystem partners are committed, and efforts are progressing.”