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Drift Protocol Hacked for $285 Million in Biggest DeFi Exploit in 2026

Drift Protocol Hacked for $285 Million in Biggest DeFi Exploit in 2026

Plus: 🤬 Circle comes under fire, 🪐 Metaplanet stocks up on cheap BTC , 🎉 Franklin Templeton dives into crypto

Laura Shin
April 02, 2026

Hi! In today’s edition:

🚨 Drift Protocol lost $285 million in an exploit using a fake token, oracle manipulation, and a compromised admin key
🔇 Circle faced criticism for failing to freeze stolen USDC as it moved through its own bridge during the Drift hack
🇯🇵 Metaplanet acquired 5,075 BTC in Q1 and became the third-largest corporate bitcoin treasury with 40,177 BTC
🏦 Franklin Templeton hired CoinFund's Christopher Perkins to run a new crypto division, and part of the deal is being paid in tokenized money market shares

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Drift Protocol Drained of $285 Million in 2026's Biggest DeFi Hack

A sophisticated exploit wiped $285 million from Drift Protocol, Solana's largest perpetual futures exchange, in what is already the biggest DeFi hack of 2026. The attack, which landed on April Fools' Day, was no joke: the protocol's total value locked plunged from roughly $309 million to $24 million.

The attacker used a fabricated token called CarbonVote Token, seeded fake liquidity on Raydium, and wash-traded it until oracles recognized a price. A compromised admin key then allowed the attacker to list the token as a valid market on Drift and raise withdrawal limits. From there, the vaults were emptied.

Stolen assets, including $51.6 million in USDC and thousands of wSOL and cbBTC, were bridged to Ethereum via Circle's CCTP and converted into ETH. The DRIFT token crashed more than 20%.

Circle Gets Slammed for Letting Stolen USDC Flow Freely During Drift Hack

Onchain investigator ZachXBT and other crypto community members criticized Circle for standing idle while tens of millions of dollars in stolen USDC flowed through its own bridge infrastructure during the $285 million Drift Protocol exploit. The attacker moved funds from Solana to Ethereum using Circle's Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol during U.S. business hours, with no intervention.

Critics were especially incensed because, on March 23, Circle froze 16 unrelated business hot wallets, including exchanges, casinos, and even an Internet Computer bridge contract, as part of a sealed civil case. ZachXBT called it "potentially the single most incompetent freeze" he'd seen in five years.

Security researcher Specter noted the Drift attacker held USDC for one to three hours before swapping, and deliberately avoided Tether, suggesting confidence Circle would not act.

Circle has not publicly responded to the criticism.

Metaplanet Vaults to Third-Largest Corporate Bitcoin Treasury With 40,177 BTC

Metaplanet now holds 40,177 bitcoin and ranks as the third-largest corporate bitcoin treasury in the world. The Tokyo-listed firm disclosed a Q1 purchase of 5,075 BTC for $405 million, at an average price of roughly $79,900 per coin. That vaults it past MARA Holdings, which sold 15,133 BTC in March to fund a $1 billion convertible note buyback.

Only Strategy, with over 762,000 BTC, and Twenty One Capital, with 43,514 BTC, hold more. Metaplanet's "555 Million Plan" targets 100,000 BTC by year-end and 210,000 by the end of 2027. The stock dipped about 2% on the news, trading at 302 yen, well below its June 2025 peak of 1,930 yen. The company's total cost basis across all holdings sits at approximately $104,100 per bitcoin.

Franklin Templeton Launches ‘Franklin Crypto’ With 250 Digital Acquisition

Franklin Templeton is launching a dedicated crypto division called Franklin Crypto, anchored by its acquisition of 250 Digital, an active cryptocurrency investment firm spun out of CoinFund. Christopher Perkins, CoinFund's president and a co-host of Unchained's Bits + Bips podcast, will lead the new unit. Seth Ginns will serve as chief investment officer.

The deal consolidates CoinFund's liquid crypto strategies under the Franklin Templeton umbrella, adding to a digital assets arm that already manages approximately $1.8 billion globally. Part of the purchase price will be paid in BENJI tokens, which are tied to Franklin's on-chain U.S. Government Money Fund, marking one of the first acquisitions settled partly with tokenized assets.

The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter.

Don’t Miss Bits + Bips: The Interview and Unchained Today!

At 12pm, Steven Ehrlich interviews Jim Ferraioli, director of digital currencies research and strategy at the Schwab Center for Financial Research.

Afterward, Laura will dive deep into the Drift Protocol hack with Omer Goldberg of Chaos Labs.

Tune in live on X, YouTube or PumpFun at 12 PM ET.

📉 Bitcoin, ether, and solana fell sharply as Trump threatened to strike Iran "extremely hard" if a deal on the Strait of Hormuz is not reached, reigniting risk-off sentiment and reversing the tentative stabilization markets had enjoyed over the prior week.
🎯 Paradigm, one of Kalshi's largest backers, is building a professional prediction markets trading terminal aimed at institutional traders and market makers, according to sources reported by Fortune. The crypto venture firm, led on the initiative by partner Arjun Balaji, is also exploring an internal market-making desk and a prediction market index product that would bundle multiple contracts into one tradeable package.
📉 CoinShares shares fell roughly 22% on its first day as a Nasdaq-listed company, a sell-the-news drop on a stock that had already priced in a difficult crypto market since the SPAC deal was announced in September.
🏦 JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said the bank is studying whether to enter prediction markets, telling CBS News "it's possible one day we'll do something like that," though he ruled out sports and politics and stressed the bank's strict rules on insider information. Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon has also signaled interest.
⚖️ Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal said he expects the long-stalled CLARITY Act to see progress within 48 hours, telling Fox Business he is "very confident" a deal on the bill's contested stablecoin yield provisions is close.

🏛️ EDX Markets, the institutional crypto exchange backed by Citadel Securities, Fidelity, and Charles Schwab, applied to the OCC for a national trust bank charter, joining a growing list of firms including Ripple, Circle, BitGo, and Paxos pursuing federal banking status.
🇦🇺 Australia passed its first comprehensive digital asset law, requiring crypto exchanges and custody providers to obtain Australian Financial Services Licences under the same framework that governs brokers and fund managers.

Enter Bitcoin Capital Markets