Drift's recovery update shows why Gracy Chen isn't optimistic about Bitget's $388M

Bitget CEO Gracy Chen has said she does not believe the $388 million stolen from her company will be recovered. Chen’s pessimism was reinforced today when Drift Protocol, more than six months on from its exploit, remains unable to recover most of the looted funds. 

Currently, the funds are still being laundered through Tornado Cash. 

How much has Drift Protocol recovered from its hack? 

Drift Foundation released an update on the recovery of the funds stolen from them on X on Wednesday. The foundation reiterated its commitment to reclaiming the roughly $295.4 million stolen from users on April 1 via freezes, a bounty, or other methods.

Even though Drift has been busy trying to recover the funds, the absence of results so far has dampened spirits. The loss was pegged at $285 million and made up over 50% of Drift’s total value. The funds were traced to a fake token scheme that allowed the thieves to withdraw USDC, SOL, and ETH after assuming control of the Solana protocol.

The plot went on for about six months, during which the scammers presented themselves as a quantitative trading firm, having face-to-face meetings with Drift contributors and depositing over $1 million ahead of the theft.

The trail went cold, then reappeared in a mixer

The stolen funds remained untouched for a large part of the springtime. However, reports came out in July about a wallet with the tag “Drift Exploiter 4” that sent 23,095.1 ETH — around $44.4 million —to Tornado Cash via many transactions on July 23 and 24. 

The move was the first huge move the group made in months, after a 0.85 ETH transfer to Bybit deposit addresses.

Even popular independent investigator ZachXBT has decided to stop keeping track of the funds in the absence of institutional help. He claimed the task was “difficult for a team and not feasible for a single person.”

Why Chen isn’t optimistic

On Tuesday, September 29, Chen stated that the Bybit incident that occurred in February 2025 will be used as a “good reference point” for Bitget’s loss. Hackers carted away $1.5 billion in Ether from Bybit, with the company only recovering or freezing a total of $80 million.

“I’m actually not very optimistic because after a year or so of Bybit’s hack, they’ve only [been able to freeze] about 3.5% of the total stolen funds,” Chen said.

Bybit CEO Ben Zhou reported that almost 28% of the stolen money had gone dark by April 2025, once they went through mixers and cross-chain bridges. 

Bybit ended up suing North Korea, its Reconnaissance General Bureau, and the Lazarus Group in a U.S. federal court. The court granted a preliminary injunction to freeze identified assets.

What Bitget has recovered thus far?

Bitget reported an initial $352 million loss after last Thursday’s incident. However, Chen went on to state the actual amount to be $388 million. The company placed a bounty of 5% of frozen and recovered funds. 

They’ve received a little help in that respect, with the NEAR Intents team blocking over $50 million linked to the incident and freezing ~$500,000. Tether and Circle also blacklisted a wallet linked to the attack, holding $318,013 in stablecoins.

Also, wallets linked to the hack have moved around $3.9 million in ZEC into Zcash’s Ironwood shielded pool.

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