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Drift Protocol relaunches as Velocity Dex with Tether credit line

Cryptorank • July 2, 2026

Drift Protocol is rebranding to Velocity DEX as part of a relaunch after a $280 million exploit on April 1 attributed to North Korea’s Lazarus Group. The relaunch is backed by a $127.5 million credit line from Tether to shore up liquidity and recovery, raising key crypto and DeFi security and fundraising questions for adoption of the perpetual futures DEX.

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Velocity DEX Relaunches After $280 Million Hack Linked to Lazarus Group Drift Protocol has rebranded as Velocity DEX following a significant exploit on April 1, 2026, where over $280 million was stolen. The attack was attributed to North Korea's Lazarus Group, which compromised multisig wallets and executed 31 transactions in approximately 12 minutes. The platform has been offline since the incident, affecting 11 DeFi protocols, including Pyra and DeFi Carrot. To support the relaunch, Tether has provided a $127.5 million credit line, and the platform will transition from USDC to USDT as its core stablecoin. A recovery token system has been established for affected users, but tokens can only be redeemed once a recovery pool of $5 million is reached. Currently, the total value locked in the protocol is around $217 million, significantly down from over $550 million prior to the exploit. 4 sources 73

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Drift Protocol relaunches as Velocity Dex with Tether credit line

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