Drift Protocol secures $147.5M from Tether to swap USDC for USDT after $270M exploit

Deal and relaunch

Drift Protocol said it has secured a proposed funding package of up to $147.5 million to relaunch its Solana-based perpetual futures platform, with $127.5 million coming from Tether and $20 million from other partners. The rescue mixes a revenue-linked credit facility, ecosystem grants and loans to market makers, and will funnel a portion of trading revenue plus committed capital into a recovery pool intended to cover roughly $295 million in user losses over time. Tether will also underwrite fee cuts, user incentives and liquidity support to help bolster trading depth when the exchange restarts using USDT as its settlement layer instead of Circle’s USDC.

The exploit and the controversy

It has been reported that a group linked to North Korea allegedly infiltrated Drift by posing as a quantitative trading firm for about six months before carrying out an exploit on April 1 that drained more than $270 million. The attacker is said to have moved roughly $232 million in USDC from Solana to Ethereum using Circle’s cross-chain transfer protocol. Critics — including blockchain investigator ZachXBT — argued Circle could have acted faster to blacklist wallets and freeze funds; Circle’s CEO Jeremy Allaire has said the company freezes USDC wallets only when directed by law enforcement or courts, citing legal risks to real-time intervention.

Market stakes and what’s next

This is a high-stakes pivot. Drift is the largest decentralized perpetuals exchange on Solana, with more than 175,000 users and about $150 billion in cumulative volume, and the move pushes USDT further into settlement-layer duties where competition with USDC is already heating up. Tether’s quicker freeze-track record is being pitched as a practical advantage; will that win back shaken users and liquidity, or simply trade one set of risks for another? Either way, the deal is a lifeline with strings attached — designed to restore funds and restart trading, but also a fresh chapter in the broader battle over which stablecoins will underpin crypto’s plumbing going forward.

Sources: coindesk.com