Drift opens redemptions for its hack-recovery token at about 1% of verified losses
Serguey Asael Shinder2 min readDrift Protocol, the Solana derivatives exchange exploited in April, opened claims and redemptions on 1 October for DFX, the token it issued to victims to track their recovery, CryptoSlate reported, citing Drift's launch announcement.
What victims hold. Each victim receives one DFX for each USDT of verified loss. Drift fixes the allocation at 299,500,810.998 DFX, corresponding to nearly 299.5 million USDT of verified losses. DFX is a transferable token on Solana, separate from the DRIFT governance token.
What it pays now. At launch the Recovery Pool held roughly 3.1 million USDT, and Drift described a payout of about 0.0104 USDT per DFX, about 1.04% of the corresponding loss. The redemption price is the pool balance divided by the DFX outstanding, and a redemption pays the rate at the moment of the transaction.
The trade-off. Redemption pays USDT and burns the submitted DFX in a single all-or-nothing transaction, and it is final. Burned tokens no longer share in future deposits; tokens kept continue to. Because cash and tokens leave the pool in the same proportion, redeeming does not change the price for those who stay, while new deposits raise it. Selling DFX on a secondary market such as Raydium is a different transaction: it passes the claim to someone else rather than drawing on the pool.
Where future money comes from. Drift says a share of net protocol revenue from its Velocity trading platform enters the pool daily at 00:00 UTC, along with any recovered stolen funds. In April, Tether announced up to 127.5 million USDT for relaunch and user recovery, and strategic partners up to 20 million USDT for recovery. Tether said its capital would be introduced progressively and tied to platform performance, so those ceilings are not cash available to DFX holders today. The claim window closes on 1 January 2028.
What it means
Recovery tokens turn a hack loss into a long-dated claim on a protocol's future revenue. At launch, redeeming means accepting about one cent per dollar now; holding is a bet on Drift's trading revenue and on how much of the headline support actually reaches the pool, which only the daily deposits will show.