Circle Internet (CRCL) Stock — Lawsuit Filed Over $280M Drift Protocol Hack

TLDR

• Circle Internet Group faces a proposed class action lawsuit filed in Massachusetts federal court.
• Plaintiffs allege Circle failed to freeze ~$230M in USDC transferred after the April 1 Drift Protocol exploit.
• The total hack drained roughly $280M from Drift Protocol, one of the largest DeFi exploits of 2026.
• Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol was used to move funds from Solana to Ethereum over several hours.
• Crypto analytics firm Elliptic suspects North Korean state-backed hackers carried out the attack.

Circle Internet Group is in legal hot water. A proposed class action lawsuit, filed Wednesday in a US district court in Massachusetts, claims the stablecoin issuer stood by while attackers moved roughly $230 million in USDC following one of the biggest crypto heists of the year.

Circle Internet Group, CRCL

The hack hit Drift Protocol on April 1, draining an estimated $280 million from the decentralized finance platform. What followed — according to the lawsuit — was a multi-hour window during which Circle allegedly watched the funds move across blockchains and did nothing.

Lead plaintiff Joshua McCollum, a Drift investor, filed the suit on behalf of more than 100 members. The complaint accuses Circle of negligence and aiding and abetting the unlawful conversion of the stolen funds.

The attackers used Circle’s own Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol to bridge the stolen USDC from Solana to Ethereum. The lawsuit argues Circle had both the technical capability and the contractual authority to freeze those wallets — and chose not to.

The law firm Mira Gibb is representing McCollum and other investors. Damages will be determined at trial.

Plaintiffs also pointed to a specific precedent: roughly a week before the Drift hack, Circle froze 16 USDC wallets in connection with a sealed US civil case. That action, they argue, proves Circle had the tools and the will to act — just not this time.

Circle’s Defense and ARK’s Take

Circle has not publicly commented on the lawsuit. Cointelegraph reached out but received no immediate response.

ARK Invest’s director of research for digital assets, Lorenzo Valente, stepped in with a defense of Circle’s position. He argued that freezing funds without a legal order sets a dangerous precedent — one that hands private companies arbitrary power over who gets frozen and who doesn’t.

What Happened to the Funds

After the bridge transfer, the stolen USDC was converted into Ether and routed through Tornado Cash, the privacy protocol, to obscure the trail.

Crypto analytics firm Elliptic suspects North Korean state-backed hackers were behind the exploit. Elliptic noted the attackers made over 100 transactions via Circle’s bridging technology during US business hours.

The Drift Protocol hack wiped out a large chunk of the platform’s total value locked and sent ripples across multiple DeFi platforms.

CRCL stock moved 1.84% following the news.

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