ZachXBT Slams Circle for Letting Millions in Stolen USDC Flow Freely After Drift Hack
Onchain investigator ZachXBT accused Circle of failing to behave whereas thousands and thousands in stolen USDC moved freely by its personal cross-chain bridge through the $285 million Drift Protocol exploit.
The criticism adopted the April 1 assault on the Solana-based decentralized trade, which ranks as the most important DeFi exploit of 2026 thus far.
Circle Faces Backlash Over CCTP Inaction
Drift Protocol, a perpetual futures platform on Solana (SOL), suffered a massive vault drain on April 1. Security agency PeckShield and blockchain analytics platform Arkham Intelligence flagged roughly $285 million in outflows from Drift’s important vault to attacker-controlled wallets.
The attacker moved stolen belongings, closely involving USDC, throughout a number of wallets earlier than bridging them from Solana to Ethereum utilizing Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP).
ZachXBT identified the transfers occurred throughout U.S. enterprise hours with no intervention.
Circle was asleep whereas many thousands and thousands of USDC had been swapped through CCTP from Solana to Ethereum for hours from the 9-figure Drift hack throughout US hours,” the blockchain investigator stated.
Security researcher Specter echoed these issues. He famous that the attacker held USDC throughout wallets for 1 to three hours earlier than swapping and intentionally prevented changing to Tether (USDT) through the bridging course of, suggesting confidence that Circle wouldn’t freeze the funds.
A Pattern of Contradictory Responses
The timing intensified frustration. Just days earlier than the Drift exploit, Circle froze the USDC balances of 16 unrelated business hot wallets on March 23, as a part of a sealed U.S. civil case.
That motion disrupted operations for exchanges, casinos, and cost processors.
ZachXBT beforehand known as that freeze probably essentially the most incompetent he had seen in over 5 years. He argued that, primarily based on on-chain evaluation, the wallets engaged in legit exercise.
Circle later unfroze one pockets linked to Goated.com on March 26, however most remained locked.
The distinction is stark. Circle acted aggressively on a civil matter affecting legit companies. Yet throughout a confirmed nine-figure exploit, it took no steps to freeze stolen funds transiting its personal infrastructure.
ZachXBT additionally tied this conduct to Circle’s proposed elective privateness options on its upcoming Arc blockchain. He recommended these options might scale back compliance accountability additional by limiting who can view transactions.
What Comes Next for Circle and Drift
On the Ethereum facet, stolen belongings had been swapped for roughly 129,000 ETH. Drift’s complete worth locked collapsed from roughly $550 million to $247 million, and its native DRIFT token fell almost 28%.
Circle has not publicly responded to the criticism. The incident has reignited debate over whether or not centralized stablecoin issuers can justify their freeze authority in the event that they apply it inconsistently.
The publish ZachXBT Slams Circle for Letting Millions in Stolen USDC Flow Freely After Drift Hack appeared first on BeInCrypto.
