Drift Protocol Hit in $286M Suspected North Korea-Linked Crypto Heist

On April 1, 2026, Drift Protocol — a Solana-based decentralized perpetual futures exchange — was hit by an active exploit that drained roughly $286M from multiple vaults, including 41.7M JLP tokens (~$155M). Initial analysis points to an administrator private-key compromise enabling direct withdrawals; stolen assets were rapidly swapped via a Solana DEX aggregator and bridged to Ethereum to obfuscate trails. Blockchain firm Elliptic reported on-chain clustering and laundering patterns consistent with DPRK-linked actors, flagged implicated addresses, and investigations and monitoring of cross-chain fund movements are ongoing.