Stablecoin issuer Tether is part of a $148 million investment in Drift as the crypto exchange recovers from a $280 million exploit and shifts away from USDC▲$0.9998.
Tether is leaning further into the fallout from one of crypto’s biggest hacks this year, stepping in with fresh capital as tensions rise across the market.
Read also: Bitcoin on April 17: Price Holds Near $75K as ETF Inflows Cool
Stablecoin giant Tether said in a Thursday, April 16 blog post that it is backing recovery efforts tied to the Drift exploit. Commenting on the investment, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said:
“This collaboration reflects our confidence in Drift and its role in the DeFi ecosystem.”
As part of its relaunch, Tether said in the blog post that Drift “will transition its settlement asset from USDC to USDT▼$0.9988.” The blog post also reads:
“This includes ecosystems such as Gauntlet, Neutral, and M1, positioning USD₮ as a primary settlement asset on one of Solana’s largest perpetual trading venues.”
The deal lands in a part of crypto where Circle has traditionally had the upper hand. Data from DefiLlama shows USDC still accounts for roughly 51.65% of the stablecoin supply on the network. That leaves Tether with room to push deeper into a market where Circle has so far held the edge.
However, the terms of the deal remain unclear. As Solana supporter under the alias @FabianoSolana noted in a post on X, based on Drift’s roughly $7 million in annualized revenue before the hack, it could take more than 21 years to recoup a $150 million investment.
DefiLlama founder @oxngmi said on X people “are misunderstanding the drift-tether deal,” adding that “its not a bailout.” The DefiLlama founder added that the funds “will be released progressively based on drift revenue, and i imagine in exchange of tokens so its actually much closer to tether getting a free call on drift, def not a bailout.”
Tether Steps In as Fallout Spreads
The move also comes as Circle, the company behind the USDC stablecoin, faces a class-action lawsuit over its handling of the same incident.
Plaintiffs claim the firm failed to freeze about $230 million in stolen funds despite having the technical ability to do so. Circle has argued it only freezes funds when directed by courts or law enforcement. But critics say that approach can slow response times in fast-moving attacks.
As blockchain tracking account MLM specified earleir in an X post, the largest share of the stolen assets from Drift was in USDC (over $60 million), followed by roughly $5.6 million in USDT, $4.4 million in Wrapped Bitcoin, and other tokens.
Read more: Drift $280M Hack Linked to DPRK After Six-Month Setup
