TechFlow News, April 16: According to CoinDesk, Drift Protocol—the largest decentralized perpetual futures exchange on Solana—announced it has secured up to $147.5 million in funding from Tether and its partners (including $127.5 million from Tether and $20 million from other partners) following a hack that compromised over $270 million. The funds will be used to reimburse users and relaunch the protocol. The attack was carried out on April 1 by a North Korea–linked group that had posed as a quantitative trading firm and operated covertly for approximately six months, causing the DRIFT token’s value to plummet roughly 70%.
The funding structure combines revenue-linked credit, ecosystem subsidies, and market maker loans, aiming to cover approximately $295 million in user losses. Following relaunch, the protocol will adopt USDT—rather than USDC—as its core settlement layer, with Tether simultaneously providing fee waivers, user incentives, and liquidity support.
