Drift Exploiter Sends $61 Million In Ether To Tornado Cash

A wallet linked to the April 1 Drift Protocol hack transferred 25,700 Ether, worth about $61 million, to Tornado Cash on Tuesday, Oct. 20, after two months of inactivity. The wallet held about 81,454 ETH, valued at roughly $194 million, after the transfer.

Blockchain tracker Lookonchain reported that the deposits occurred over about two hours. Data from Arkham showed that addresses linked to the exploiter held the remaining Ether.

Tornado Cash is a cryptocurrency mixer that pools funds from multiple addresses and obscures transaction trails. Using the service can make it harder to trace stolen assets and identify their destination.

The Drift exploit caused about $295 million in losses. Drift is a decentralized exchange built on the Solana network. A forensic investigation by cybersecurity firm Mandiant, cited by Drift in June, attributed the attack to UNC6862, a North Korean threat group.

Drift opened claims and redemptions for DFX recovery tokens on Oct. 1. The tokens give affected users a claim on a recovery pool, which held about $3.1 million when it launched. The pool receives exchange revenue and any recovered funds.

DeFiLlama lists the Drift exploit as the third-largest cryptocurrency hack of 2026. The Bitget hack, involving about $387 million, and the Liquid Network exploit, involving about $320 million, rank ahead of it.