Tether Supports Drift Recovery… Aiming for USDT Dominance on Solana?

Tether has stepped forward to support the recovery plan of Drift Protocol, a Solana-based perpetual exchange. This move comes after the loss of approximately $285 million in an attack believed to be carried out by North Korean-linked hackers on April 1, with the focus placed on "USDT expansion" and "increasing Solana's market share" rather than simple compensation.

Switching to USDT as settlement asset… Moving to shake USDC's dominance

According to foreign media reports, Drift is pushing to switch payment assets from USDC to USDT through a reward scheme. Tether claims that this will attract over 128,000 users and more than 35 ecosystem teams to USDT-based transactions. Currently, in the global stablecoin market, USDT significantly outperforms USDC ($79 billion) with a market capitalization of $185 billion, but the situation is different in Solana. With USDC’s market cap at $8.1 billion—approximately 2.65 times larger than USDT’s at around $3.05 billion—this move is also being interpreted as a battle for dominance within Solana.

Drift recovery is transaction-based recovery, not 'full compensation'

This recovery plan does not involve immediately returning the hacked losses like cash. Instead, it is structured to redirect exchange profits toward recovery resources and gradually inject external funding based on performance. DeFiLlama’s 0xngmi described this approach as being “closer to a structure where losses are recovered only through trading on Drift.” Drift also plans to deposit a portion of fees and external funds into a ‘recovery pool’ and design tokens to distribute to victims. Prior to the hack, Drift’s Total Value Locked (TVL) stood at $550 million, placing it among the top protocols in the Solana ecosystem.

Criticism of circles reignited… Controversy over failure to freeze spreads

This incident is also placing a burden on Circle, the issuer of USDC. Blockchain investigator ZachXBT has consistently raised concerns about Circle's passive approach to freezing the hacked funds. Recently, there have also been reports that a class-action lawsuit has been filed against Circle regarding fund transfers using CCTP. Amidst the ongoing controversy surrounding the tracking and freezing of the hacked funds, Tether's response is interpreted as a strategic move to expand USDT's presence on Solana, going beyond mere recovery support.