U.S. law firm launches class-action litigation investigation into Drift Protocol hack, targeting Circle
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.