Drift Protocol Announces $295M ETH Hack Recovery Plan with Tether Backing

Drift Protocol has detailed a recovery plan for its $295.4 million exploit on April 1, 2026, which stole 130,259 ETH traced to four wallets. The plan issues transferable recovery tokens worth $1 per verified loss, funded by a $3.8M protocol pool converted to USDT, up to $127.5M performance-based from Tether, up to $20M from partners, and a 10% bounty on recovered assets; Circle froze $3.36M USDC. Relaunch is targeted for Q2 2026 with enhanced multisig, timelocks, audits, and a focus on perpetual futures, pending DAO vote. This structured package, including Tether's $20M market-making facility, aims to restore user capital and mitigate DeFi contagion risks.