Drift Exploiter Sends $61M in Ether to Tornado Cash
Ecosystem
English | News | Markets | Features | Research | Opinion | Podcasts | Newsletters | Commissioned | About
- DOGE: $0.08108 (2.26%)
- TRX: $0.3308 (0.06%)
- LINK: $12.19 (2.29%)
- ZEC: $1,215.53 (7.72%)
- ADA: $0.2216 (2.02%)
- XRP: $1.32 (1.80%)
- ETH: $2,444.85 (1.67%)
- BTC: $82,674.80 (0.76%)
- XMR: $621.77 (5.30%)
- BNB: $737.49 (1.28%)
- XLM: $0.1795 (1.73%)
- SOL: $106.40 (2.03%)
- HYPE: $79.95 (2.22%)
Written by:
- Zoltan Vardai (staff writer)
- Yohan Yun (staff editor)
Published: October 20, 2026
A wallet linked to the Drift Protocol hack sent approximately $61 million in Ether (ETH) to Tornado Cash, a service that conceals transaction trails, according to blockchain analytics platform Lookonchain. This occurred over two hours on Tuesday, after a period of inactivity lasting two months.
The exploiter's addresses held around 81,454 Ether, equivalent to roughly $194 million, as per Arkham. Crypto mixers aggregate funds from multiple addresses, making it harder to trace the money.
Drift, a Solana-based decentralized exchange, reported approximately $295 million in losses from the April 1 hack. Later investigations by cybersecurity firm Mandiant attributed the attack to UNC6862, a North Korean threat group.
Drift opened claims and redemption processes for DFX recovery tokens on October 1. The tokens entitle affected users to a share of a recovery pool, which initially held about $3.1 million and receives exchange revenue and recovered funds.
This exploit is the third-largest crypto hack of 2026, according to DefiLlama, following the $387 million Bitget hack and the $320 million Liquid Network exploit.