$200M Hack Hits Drift Protocol as Solana DEX Freezes Activity

One of Solana’s largest decentralised exchanges, Drift Protocol, has been responding to an active exploit after blockchain investigators traced at least US$200 million (AU$290 million) in suspicious outflows from its vaults, with some estimates from Arkham Intelligence and PeckShield putting the loss as high as US$285 million (AU$413 million).

The protocol halted deposits and withdrawals and warned users to act carefully while it worked with security firms, bridges and exchanges to contain the breach. In a post on X, Drift remarked that the incident was real and not an April Fool’s joke.

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How the Attack Unfolded

The attack appears to have started earlier in the day, at about 9:06 a.m. ET, when roughly 41 million JLP tokens worth about US$155 million (AU$225 million) were moved out of Drift Vault and sent to a wallet later identified by blockchain analytics platforms. 

That wallet had reportedly been funded with 1 SOL the previous week.

Lookonchain and PeckShield detected the outflows around 1:30 p.m. ET, while Helius chief executive Mert Mumtaz warned traders publicly before Drift issued its own statement around 3:00 p.m. ET.

The stolen assets included USDC, JLP, wrapped Bitcoin, wrapped Ethereum and other tokens. They were moved through the Jupiter aggregator and then bridged from Solana to Ethereum. 

Circle, which issues USDC, was alerted, and about US$4 million (AU$5.8 million) in USDC has reportedly been frozen on Ethereum.

Early analysis pointed away from a typical smart contract flaw. PeckShield founder Jiang Xuxian said the likely cause was compromised admin keys rather than a contract bug, though Drift had not officially confirmed the attack vector at the time of publication.

If the higher loss estimate is confirmed, the exploit would rank among the largest DeFi breaches to date and the second-largest known Solana-based incident after the 2022 Wormhole bridge hack, which resulted in losses of US$326 million (AU$473 million).

Drift’s governance token fell about 28% on the day to roughly US$0.049 (AU$0.071). That leaves it about 98% below its November 2024 all-time high of US$2.60 (AU$3.77). No timeline had been given for restoring normal platform activity, and no recovered funds had been publicly confirmed.

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