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Home/Markets & Investing/TETHER USDT

Tether replaces USDC as Drift Protocol's settlement layer after $280 million exploit

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Orion Holloway

Tether USDT · Apr 17, 2026

Tether replaces USDC as Drift Protocol's settlement layer after $280 million exploit

Source: DojiDoji Data Terminal

Drift Protocol's governance token fell 70% in value after a $280 million exploit on April 1. The attack was executed by North Korean hackers who had spent six months posing as a quantitative trading firm to gain access to the platform.

Related Brief3h ago
stablecoins

Tether Uses Operating Profits to Push Bitcoin Reserves Past 97,000 BTC

Tether's reserve holdings now include Bitcoin worth roughly $7.16 billion. The company added $70 million in Bitcoin to its reserves on April 15, 2026, by moving 951 BTC from the Bitfinex exchange to its reserve wallet. This purchase is funded by a policy introduced in 2023 that allocates up to 15% of realized operating profits into Bitcoin. Tether reported more than $10 billion in net profit for 2025, driven by growth in USDT and income from U.S. Treasury holdings. Tether holdings now total 97,141 BTC.

Following the exploit, hackers transferred $232 million in USDC from Solana to Ethereum using Circle's Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol. Blockchain investigator ZachXBT noted that Circle had a six-hour window to freeze the funds but did not act. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire stated the company only freezes wallets when directed by law enforcement or courts to avoid legal risk.

Related Brief22h ago
stablecoins

Tether’s $134M Bet on SDEV Isn’t About Speculation—It’s About Building the Rails for 570 Million People to Use Digital Dollars Daily

Stablecoin transaction volumes have already surpassed $33 trillion—more than Visa and Mastercard combined. For over 570 million people, Tether’s USDT isn’t speculative; it’s how they move, hold, and spend money. The $134 million financing round closed by Stablecoin Development Corporation (SDEV) in January 2026 isn’t about price swings or trading hype. It’s about building the infrastructure those users depend on. Tether Investments joined R01 Fund LP, Framework Ventures, and Sky Frontier Foundation in the private placement, directing capital toward hardening the rails that carry digital dollars across borders and blockchains. The proceeds allowed SDEV to acquire more than 2 billion SKY tokens and scale its role as an on-chain holding company. SDEV, which rebranded from NovaBay Pharmaceuticals and switched its ticker to SDEV in early April 2026, now serves as a public-market conduit to the stablecoin economy—offering institutional and retail investors regulated exposure to a sector that moves $300 billion in circulating value. Tether’s participation signals more than financial backing. It reflects a strategic push toward reliability and usability. That same month, Tether launched tether.wallet, its first self-custodial wallet for retail users, stepping directly into competition with MetaMask, Trust Wallet, and Phantom. The move marks a shift from being purely a settlement layer across 160 countries to becoming a consumer-facing platform. As regulatory clarity improves in key markets, the focus is no longer on whether stablecoins will be accepted—it’s on whether the infrastructure can sustain daily, global financial demand. Paolo Ardoino, Tether’s CEO, put it plainly: the next phase isn’t innovation for its own sake. It’s about systems that make digital dollars practical for everyday life, especially where traditional finance fails. Robust infrastructure enables that. And now, it has $134 million more to build it.

To facilitate recovery, Tether is leading a $147.5 million recovery package. Tether is contributing $127.5 million, with $20 million coming from undisclosed partners. The funding is structured as a revenue-linked credit facility, using a portion of Drift's trading revenue to flow into a recovery pool to repay approximately $295 million in total user losses.

Related Brief1d ago
on-chain analytics

Ethereum stablecoin activity hits lowest levels since December

The demand for stablecoin-related swaps on the Ethereum network has declined. Daily Active Addresses—the total number of addresses participating in transaction activity on the network—have fallen to their lowest levels since December. For USDT, the metric has dropped to 202,300 addresses. For USDC, the USDC metric has dropped to 109,300 addresses. This decline in transaction activity suggests that holders of the two largest stablecoins are reducing their moves on the network. These trends are reported by on-chain analytics firm Santiment.

As part of the deal, Drift will replace Circle's USDC with Tether's USDT as its core settlement layer. Tether will also provide fee reductions and liquidity support to market makers when the platform relaunches.

Related Brief4h ago
cryptocurrency derivatives

Binance enables 24/7 South African trading of gold and silver via stablecoin contracts

South African traders can now diversify their portfolios with stablecoin-settled contracts on conventional assets. This access is provided through TradFi Perpetual Contracts, which allow users to trade traditional assets such as gold and silver. These contracts are settled in USDT and provide 24/7 market exposure without the constraints of traditional market hours. The ability to trade these assets is part of a broader global initiative supported by Binance's regulatory licenses under the ADGM FSRA framework.

Tether USDT

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