Circle, the stablecoin issuer, is facing criticism for not acting quickly enough to freeze funds that were stolen during a hack involving the Drift exchange. According to a report by CoinDesk, the attack allowed perpetrators to transfer around $232 million in USDC from Solana to Ethereum by exploiting Circle’s cross-chain transfer protocol.
Blockchain researcher Zack XBT highlighted that Circle could have intervened earlier to minimize Drift’s losses. However, there’s a counterpoint; some argue that Circle might have legal implications if they acted without a court order or law enforcement’s request.
A representative from Circle stated, “Circle is a regulated company that complies with sanctions, law enforcement orders, and court-imposed requirements. We adhere to the rule of law and will freeze assets when legally required, while strongly protecting the rights and privacy of our users.”
On April 1, Drift, which provides perpetual futures on the Solana blockchain, announced on its social media that there was ongoing suspicious activity, prompting them to halt deposits and withdrawals. As of late Friday, this alert remained highlighted on their social channels. Their website displayed a banner indicating that, “Due to irregular activity in our protocols, Drift is suspended until further notice.”
Drift further clarified the situation in a series of social media posts, explaining that a hacker had gained unauthorized control over their Security Council in a “highly sophisticated operation.” The attack involved compromising the authorizations of various multisig signers, likely through targeted social engineering tactics.
On April 2, Drift announced it had gathered information about those involved in the exploit and was reaching out to wallets that were holding the stolen funds. They promised that once they were able to confirm the identities of the involved parties, further updates would be shared with their community.
Financial Times reported that the hackers stole approximately $280 million from Drift, marking it as a significant incident within the crypto industry. Bloomberg echoed this sentiment, noting that due to the amount stolen, this could be one of the largest hacks in crypto history, as suggested by blockchain data analysts.
