DRIFT fluctuated by 40.8% in 24 hours: $285M hack led to price surge followed by a crash

Volatility Overview

In the past 24 hours, DRIFT's price surged from a high of $0.048 before pulling back to a low of $0.0341, and the current price is $0.0342. The overall amplitude reached 40.8%, with a 24-hour decline of approximately 15%-25%. The 24-hour trading volume expanded to $15.26 million-$23.11 million, while TVL was halved from around $500 million to about $230 million.

Brief Analysis of the Cause of Abnormal Fluctuations

- Drift Protocol confirmed a highly sophisticated hacker attack, resulting in a loss of about $285 million, making it the largest DeFi breach in 2026. The attacker swiftly took control of governance and drained the treasury via social engineering to compromise the Security Council multisig (2/5 approval), durable nonces pre-signed transactions, and oracle manipulation.

- The protocol immediately suspended deposits and withdrawals, and team-associated wallets transferred 56.25 million DRIFT tokens to Bybit and Gate.

- The stolen funds were bridged to Ethereum, with suspected DPRK-related activity.

Market Perspectives and Outlook

The prevailing market and community sentiment is panic and shaken confidence, with $DRIFT liquidity rapidly drying up and SOL ecosystem tokens possibly facing rotation outflows. Analysts warn that volatility will persist until the incident is clarified, emphasizing attention to the team’s recovery plan, stolen asset tracing, and DeFi insurance mechanisms. In the short term, the price may test new lows (such as below $0.04), highlighting the security risks associated with admin keys.