News linked to both this project and an event.
According to CoinDesk, Simone Maini, CEO of blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, stated that the biggest emerging risk to crypto security is not larger-scale hacking attacks, but rather AI-driven financial activity operating at a speed and scale that human compliance teams cannot keep up with. As AI lowers the barriers to hacking, scams, and fraud, security firms like Elliptic are responding by deploying AI agents to analyze on-chain data in real time—sparking an automated arms race between adversaries and defenders. Maini noted that current compliance systems remain heavily reliant on manual review, and the global pool of compliance analysts specializing in digital assets is simply insufficient to meet future demand. Elliptic has raised $120 million in funding—including from Nasdaq and Deutsche Bank—to build an “agent-based compliance system” that leverages AI to automate transaction monitoring and investigation workflows, thereby reducing the cost per alert and per investigation.
According to Cointelegraph, stablecoin issuer Circle faces a class-action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts for failing to freeze stolen funds during the Drift Protocol hack on April 1. Plaintiffs allege that attackers transferred approximately $230 million worth of USDC from Solana to Ethereum via Circle’s cross-chain transfer protocol (CCTP) within hours—and that Circle failed to intervene. The lawsuit accuses Circle of aiding and abetting conversion and of negligence. Cryptocurrency analytics firm Elliptic previously suspected the attack may be linked to North Korea–backed hackers; the stolen funds were subsequently converted into ETH and laundered through Tornado Cash.
According to The Block, Grinex—a Russia-linked cryptocurrency exchange—suspended withdrawals and trading on Thursday after suffering a hack reportedly worth approximately $15 million. Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic stated that the stolen funds consisted of USDT, which were subsequently moved across the Tron and Ethereum networks and swapped for TRX and ETH to reduce the risk of being frozen by Tether. Grinex said its wallet infrastructure was hit by a “large-scale cyberattack,” resulting in losses exceeding 1 billion rubles—approximately $13.1 million. Reports indicate Grinex is widely regarded as one of the successor platforms to sanctioned exchange Garantex, which U.S. authorities targeted last year for facilitating hundreds of millions of dollars in illicit fund flows.
U.S. law firm Gibbs Mura has launched a class-action litigation investigation into the April 1, 2026, hack of Drift Protocol, reviewing potential investor claims against Circle Internet Financial. The attack resulted in the theft of approximately $280–285 million in assets. The attacker subsequently used Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) to bridge over $230 million worth of USDC to Ethereum—Circle took no action to freeze the funds throughout the incident. Notably, just nine days prior, Circle had voluntarily frozen 16 business wallets in a separate civil dispute. Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic suspects the attack was carried out by a North Korea–backed hacking group. As a result of the breach, Drift Protocol’s total value locked (TVL) plummeted from $550 million to below $250 million, the DRIFT token price dropped more than 40%, and at least 20 DeFi protocols suffered indirect losses.