The Drift exploiter transferred approximately $109 million in Ethereum to Tornado Cash on October 20 and 21, raising concerns over the movement of stolen cryptocurrency. Blockchain tracker Onchain Lens identified 44,510 ETH in transfers linked to the $295.7 million Drift Protocol hack in April.
The total number of ETH transferred is around 18,800, amounting to about $46 million on Wednesday. In addition, 25,710 ETH was sent on Tuesday with an approximate value of $61 million. The combined total of the transfers constitutes over one-third of the amount totaling $295.7 million stolen in April.
How Much ETH Does the Drift Exploiter Still Hold?
According to recent transactions, the wallets owned by the Drift exploiter have accumulated close to 56,569 ETH. Based on the data provided by Arkham Intelligence, the amount was estimated at almost $138 million on October 21.
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According to Tuesday’s figures, the balance of ETHs monitored was near 81,454 ETH, which is worth about $194 million. This change in the balance is caused by outgoing transfers and fluctuations of Ether’s value in the market.
Earlier, the Drift exploiter used Tornado Cash for transferring their assets. In August, wallets connected to the hacker transferred about $44 million in ETH through the mixing service.
Additionally, Lookonchain june discovered the inflow of around 25,700 ETH to Tornado Cash in 2 hours on October 20. Other trackers detected lower amounts as the transfers proceeded. The two-day inflow of ETH was then detected by Onchain Lens.
This activity shows the further movement of the assets owned by the Drift exploiter. It should be noted that blockchain analysis is not enough for determining the final recipient of funds withdrawn from the mixer.
Who Was Behind the April Drift Attack?
Drift Protocol suffered losses worth $295.7 million from its April 1 attack. Previous estimates of the losses varied since the investigators used token values calculated at various times. The attack was one of the biggest attacks in the decentralized finance industry that year.
In the June 3 recovery status update by Drift, it referred to findings from the cybersecurity company Mandiant. The investigation linked the attack to the North Korean threat actor UNC6862, using operational indicators and past attacks.
The attackers had spent several months building trust with protocol contributors, with the attack involving access compromise and transaction approvals rather than a coding mistake in the smart contracts.
Following the breach, Drift hired former Helium executive Noah Prince to lead engineering development efforts. Drift also brought in former Gauntlet staff to assess risk management and liquidation infrastructure.
Drift intended to restart trading operations and allocate some of its revenues to compensate users. At the same time, transactions made by the Drift exploiter remain independent of recoveries.
How Does the DFX Recovery Program Work?
The Drift DFX claims started opening on October 1. The Solana-based token enables affected users to redeem one DFX for each verified USDT of losses. The total supply will be fixed at approximately 299.5 million DFXs.
Initially, the recovery pool had approximately 3.1 million USDT. The first redemption value was approximately $0.0104 per one DFX. This indicates that claiming DFX does not mean that you will get your money back instantly.
Users can redeem their DFX against available funds, sell their tokens, or just keep them. The redeemed tokens are permanently burned.
The recovery system allocates a certain percentage of the daily net revenue generated by the protocol to the recovery pool. The percentage depends on the revenue and may vary from 60% to 90%.
Additionally, Drift plans to allocate recovered assets from the exploiters of the Drift protocol via legal actions or freezes. Tether has promised up to 127.5 million USDT of assistance, while others pledged up to 20 million USDT.
However, these commitments do not represent funds currently available for redemption. Eligible users must claim their DFX tokens before January 1, 2028, at 00:00 UTC. Any unclaimed tokens will be permanently burned.
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