News linked to both this project and an event.
the L1 blockchain TAC team stated they have confirmed a security incident on the cross-chain layer resulted in approximately $2.8 million in assets being transferred, involving assets such as USDT, BLUM, and tsTON.TAC stated that if the attacker returns the relevant funds to the designated multi-signature address, the team will consider this incident a "white hat rescue" and will not take legal action against the operator of the involved ETH/BSC, ZEC, and TON addresses.As a reward, the attacker can receive an approximately 10% bounty, equivalent to about 13 ETH and 300 ZEC.
TAC stated that its cross-chain layer on the TON side was exploited by external attackers, resulting in approximately $2.8 million in losses involving USDT, BLUM, and tsTON. TAC confirmed that the TAC token, TON, and all ERC-20 tokens bridged from Ethereum remain unaffected. The bridge has been temporarily suspended, and the team is conducting forensic analysis and implementing fixes. Additionally, the team plans to legally structure a sale of the foundation’s TAC token treasury reserves to restore bridge liquidity and compensate affected users. A post-mortem report and further details will be released within the next 48 hours.
following the Kelp security incident, Tether's asset interoperability protocol USDT0 has disclosed details of its protocol security architecture. It stated that the system currently utilizes a proprietary DVN (Decentralized Verification Network) with message veto authority, and requires 3 independent validators, operating on different codebases, to reach a 3/3 consensus before cross-chain messages can be settled. The current verification nodes include the USDT0 proprietary DVN, LayerZero, and Canary, with future plans to expand to 4/4 and 5/5 verification mechanisms.USDT0 also stated that all multi-signature transactions must undergo multiple reviews by internal teams, external security teams, and auditing firms before signatures are submitted. The relevant contracts have been audited by firms such as Guardian and OpenZeppelin, and a $6 million bug bounty program has been launched on Immunefi.
According to the official disclosure by Drift Protocol, all affected wallets impacted by the April 1 attack will receive Recovery Tokens—representing their verified losses and proportional claims against the Recovery Pool—where each Recovery Token corresponds to $1 of verified loss. The Recovery Pool’s initial funding is approximately $3.8 million, sourced from converting the protocol’s remaining assets into USDT. It will be further replenished through a portion of quarterly net exchange revenue, partner contributions, and up to $127.5 million in matching deployment from Tether. Once the Recovery Pool exceeds $5 million, users may begin redeeming Recovery Tokens; the redemption price will be calculated as the Recovery Fund’s value divided by the outstanding supply of Recovery Tokens. Drift stated that the Insurance Fund was unaffected by the attack; any release of related funds requires governance proposals and DAO voting. The exchange plans to relaunch in Q2 2026, focusing primarily on perpetual contracts and a select set of markets. Additionally, it will replace its programs and addresses, rotate keys, reconstruct its community multisig, remove durable nonces and the Earn product, and implement operational security upgrades.
According to Odaily, Drift Protocol has released a user recovery plan for the approximately $295 million security vulnerability incident on April 1, which was attributed to a North Korean-backed hacker group. Under the plan, Drift will issue receipt tokens representing users' verified losses, with each token corresponding to $1 in losses, allowing holders to gradually redeem based on the recovery pool's funding size.Currently, the recovery pool has initial funding of approximately $3.8 million. Subsequent funding sources include up to $127.5 million from exchange revenue, Tether-backed funds, and up to $20 million from partner contributions, aiming to cover total losses of approximately $295.4 million. Drift has frozen approximately $3.36 million in USDC and has established a public bounty program offering 10% of recovered assets. It is expected to relaunch the exchange in a "security-first" model during the second quarter. (CoinDesk)
According to monitoring by on-chain analyst Specter, the Wasabi Protocol attacker has deposited all stolen funds into Tornado Cash, moving approximately $5.9 million into Tornado Cash. Additionally, North Korean hacking groups have also used Tornado Cash to launder stolen funds from KelpDAO and LayerZero. Their process involved first cross-chaining the assets to Bitcoin, then routing them through Wasabi Mixer, extracting and cross-chaining back to Ethereum, depositing into Tornado Cash, subsequently withdrawing to new wallets and dispersing across multiple addresses. The new wallets then deployed tokens, used the stolen funds to buy in, removed liquidity from the deployment wallet, cross-chained to Tron (USDT), held for several hours or days, and finally sent to OTC-related wallets.
According to The Block, JPMorgan analysts noted in their latest report that ongoing DeFi security vulnerabilities and stagnant growth in total value locked (TVL) continue to constrain institutional enthusiasm for the DeFi sector. Recently, Kelp DAO’s cross-chain bridge suffered a major attack, during which the attacker minted $292 million worth of uncollateralized rsETH tokens and borrowed real ETH on Aave, resulting in approximately $230 million in bad debt. This caused DeFi TVL to evaporate by roughly $20 billion within several days. LayerZero and blockchain security researchers have attributed this attack to the North Korean hacker group Lazarus Group; some of the stolen funds have been frozen, while the rest remain in circulation. Analysts also pointed out that DeFi TVL denominated in ETH has remained range-bound for an extended period, raising market concerns about whether DeFi can achieve organic growth sufficient to support institutional adoption. Furthermore, following each security incident, users tend to shift funds into USDT as a safe-haven asset—yet this trend has not yet significantly driven USDT’s market capitalization growth.
According to on-chain analyst PeckShield (@PeckShieldAlert), the KelpDAO attacker has transferred ETH from Ethereum to Arbitrum via the Across Protocol, swapped it for USDT, and then routed the funds to TRON DAO via LayerZero.
According to an official disclosure by RHEA Finance, on April 16, 2026, the NEAR ecosystem lending protocol RHEA Finance (formerly Burrow Finance) suffered a hack targeting its margin trading functionality, resulting in losses of approximately $18.4 million. The attacker began preparations several days prior to the incident by creating multiple fake token pools on Ref Finance and injecting liquidity into them, thereby constructing malicious swap routes. Exploiting a vulnerability in the protocol’s slippage protection mechanism—which failed to account for scenarios where intermediate tokens were reused during multi-step swaps—the attacker caused borrowed debt tokens to be routed into fake token pools under their control. This triggered widespread forced liquidations, ultimately draining the protocol’s reserve pool. During the attack, the attacker deleted a total of 55 intermediary accounts to obscure their trail. As of now, the attacker has repaid approximately 3.359 million USDC and 1.564 million NEAR to the RHEA lending contract. Additionally, 4.34 million USDT have been frozen—3.291 million frozen by Tether and 1.053 million frozen by NEAR Intents. The protocol’s smart contracts have been paused, and the team is collaborating with centralized exchanges to jointly trace the funds; relevant law enforcement agencies have also been notified.
Odaily News Rhea Finance has released a post-mortem report on the attack, confirming that the actual loss from the vulnerability is approximately $18.4 million, a significant increase from the initial estimate of around $7.6 million.The attacker constructed complex transaction paths, manipulated liquidity using fake token pools, funneled borrowed assets into pools under their control, and returned only minimal assets. This caused a large number of margin positions to rapidly become undercollateralized and triggered liquidations, ultimately depleting the protocol's reserve funds.Approximately $11.2 million in funds have been recovered or frozen so far. This includes some USDC and NEAR assets returned by the attacker, as well as about $4.34 million in USDT that was frozen (with assistance from Tether).
Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, tweeted that Tether has frozen 3.29 million USDT in the hacker’s address associated with Rhea Finance. Earlier reports indicated that Rhea Finance was attacked via a fake token contract, resulting in approximately $7.6 million stolen.
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.
According to CoinDesk, Drift Protocol—the largest decentralized perpetual futures exchange on Solana—announced it has secured up to $147.5 million in funding from Tether and its partners (including $127.5 million from Tether and $20 million from other partners) following a hack that stole over $270 million. The funds will be used to restore user assets and relaunch the protocol. The attack was carried out on April 1 by a North Korea–linked group that had posed as a quantitative trading firm and infiltrated the protocol for approximately six months, causing the DRIFT token’s value to plummet roughly 70%. The funding structure combines revenue-linked credit, ecosystem subsidies, and market-maker loans, aiming to cover approximately $295 million in user losses. Upon relaunch, the protocol will replace USDC with USDT as its core settlement layer; Tether will simultaneously provide fee waivers, user incentives, and liquidity support.
Odaily News Drift announced on its official website that Drift Protocol has received support from Tether and other partners. Tether intends to contribute $127.5 million, while other partners plan to contribute $20 million, collectively supporting user recovery efforts following the April 1st attack. This support package includes a $100 million revenue-linked credit line, ecosystem grants, and loans provided to market makers. Drift will establish a dedicated user recovery pool, aiming to gradually address the $295 million in outstanding user losses as trading revenue grows. Additionally, Drift will issue independent recovery tokens to affected users, which represent a claim on the recovery pool and are transferable. Drift is currently in the process of restarting the protocol, having engaged Ottersec and Asymmetric for audits, and is migrating its settlement layer from USDC to USDT. The previous attack resulted in the theft of assets worth approximately $295 million, while the insurance fund assets remained unaffected.