DRIFT hacked; token plummets 28%. The hacker laundered $285 million entirely into ETH and fled

Drift Protocol hacking incident continues to escalate, with the DRIFT token plunging 28% in a single day, to $0.049. From the all-time high of $2.60, it is down 98%. On-chain monitoring shows that the hacker has completed the entire money-laundering process, converting all $285 million worth of assets into 129,066 ETH (about $278 million).
(Backgrounder: Drift Protocol has confirmed that the hack “is not an April Fools’ Day prank”! Losses could reach up to $270 million, and the hacker is feverishly laundering funds to swap into ETH)
(Additional context: The Solana ecosystem’s Perp DEX protocol Drift Protocol reportedly suffered a $220 million hack! $DRIFT plunges 30% on the news)

Table of Contents

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• Service halted, cloud of疑 private key疑 surrounds
• Cross-chain money-laundering route: JLP → USDC → bridge → ETH
• Trust ledger for Solana DeFi ecosystem

A 28% drop, with 98% of the value wiped out from the ATH—those are the numbers Drift Protocol users see upon waking up today. The DRIFT token is trading at $0.049, while the historical high more than a year ago was $2.60. For users still holding the tokens, this attack isn’t just news—it’s a real loss of assets.

Service halted, cloud of private key suspicion hangs

After the incident, Drift Protocol urgently paused its services and advised users in an official channel to refrain from depositing any funds. Current investigations point to a leaked private key rather than a contract vulnerability, meaning the attacker may have already had the protocol’s critical access permissions. Security firm PeckShield has tagged the related addresses and is continuing to track the flow of funds. Bloomberg has also reported on the incident.

If the private key leak is confirmed, security issues in the foundational infrastructure of Solana ecosystem DeFi protocols will once again be put under the spotlight—this isn’t a single incident, but a test of trust across the entire ecosystem.

Cross-chain money-laundering route: JLP → USDC → bridge → ETH

On-chain data reconstructs the hacker’s full escape route. The attacker first bought a large amount of 41.72 million JLP (about $155.6 million), then liquidated stable assets such as USDC, and finally transferred funds from Solana to Ethereum via a cross-chain bridge, before ultimately swapping everything into ETH.

The whole process is clean and efficient, leaving few intermediate states that are easy to trace. Residual monitoring confirms that, as of now, all 129,066 ETH have been collected, worth $278 million in aggregate.

Trust ledger for the Solana DeFi ecosystem

This is the second time Drift Protocol has landed on the cybersecurity headlines within just a few days. Last time, the loss figure was still at $220 million; this time, it has been confirmed to have expanded to $285 million. The hacker chose to act around April 1, April Fools’ Day, making the absurdity of the entire incident even more pronounced—but for the affected users, the losses are just as real, down to the last cent.

The Solana ecosystem is known for high speed and low fees, attracting a large number of DeFi protocols to move in. But a string of major security incidents is eroding this trust. Whether Drift can fully disclose the root cause of the private key leak, and how the compensation plan will be implemented, will be key to what the market watches next.