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ZachXBT accused Circle of inaction following the $285 million hack of the Drift protocol., 2026/04/02 14:41:04
Blockchain investigator ZachXBT has accused the USDC stablecoin issuer Circle of inaction, which allowed the $230 million stolen during the hack of the Drift crypto protocol to be freely transferred through Circle’s cross-chain transfer protocol from Solana to Ethereum.
The company had the ability to freeze the stolen USDC but did not take any steps to block the funds, according to the anonymous crypto detective.
ZachXBT stated that the stolen USDC was moved through the Circle protocol (CCTP) in over 100 transactions. This activity persisted for approximately six hours during US business hours without any intervention from the issuing company.
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Another researcher, known as Wazz, supported ZachXBT’s claims. He provided data indicating that the hacker received USDC via the Circle bridge three hours after news of the hack was shared on social media and in the press. From that point, around $33 million of the stolen funds were converted into Ether.
Blockchain analysts suggested that the hacker deliberately avoided converting to Tether’s USDT stablecoins during the withdrawal process due to concerns that they would be frozen by the issuer.
The hack of the Drift crypto protocol occurred on the evening of April 1. In terms of total damage, it ranks as the second largest in Solana’s history, surpassed only by the Wormhole bridge hack, which resulted in $326 million in 2022. This incident marks the largest hack of a DeFi project in 2026. The unknown perpetrator withdrew 41 million JLP tokens valued at $155 million, along with other assets including USDC, cbBTC, USDS, and USDT. In total, the hacker stole over $285 million. The stolen assets were converted into approximately 129,000 ETH.
Nine days prior, Circle had frozen the accounts of 16 legitimate business wallets at the request of U.S. authorities, as previously noted by ZachXBT. He criticized the company for its minimal engagement with private crypto platforms, advocating for regulatory interests without adequately addressing the situation.
