A year ago, a guide to “Drift points” would have been about FUEL, the loyalty program that turned perpetuals volume on Solana into a share of DRIFT tokens. In 2026 the story is completely different. On April 1 Drift suffered the largest DeFi exploit of the year, roughly $295 million drained in a suspected North Korean operation. The exchange has since been rebuilt and relaunched under a new name, Velocity, and affected users hold a recovery token called DFX. If you used Drift, or are thinking of trading on its successor, this is what you need to know.
What Drift was
Drift Protocol was one of the largest decentralised derivatives exchanges on Solana. It combined perpetual futures, spot trading, borrowing and lending in one cross-margined account, so deposits could earn lending yield while also backing leveraged positions. Liquidity came from a hybrid of on-chain order matching, a keeper network and backstop AMMs. In late 2025 Drift shipped v3, a major performance upgrade promising much faster fills and gasless trading by default.
The DRIFT governance token launched in May 2024 with an airdrop to early users. Drift’s original resources were drift.trade and the documentation at docs.drift.trade; treat any instructions there as historical where they conflict with Velocity’s newer material.
How FUEL points worked and how they paid out
FUEL was Drift’s points program. Users earned FUEL for taking and making perpetual trades, staking in the insurance fund, depositing and borrowing, and holding certain partner assets. Different activities earned at different rates, and partner tokens sometimes carried boosts. FUEL was explicitly tied to a future DRIFT distribution rather than being an end in itself.
The season ended with a snapshot on June 3, 2025. Drift then allocated 28.2 million DRIFT to participants based on trading volume, staking and other measured activity. Reported examples suggested that a trader with $10 million in volume would receive roughly 20,880 DRIFT, a reminder of how volume-weighted the scheme was. Larger allocations were subject to a nine-month vesting schedule. There has been no new FUEL season since, and the exploit and rebrand mean the old program should be considered closed.
The April 2026 exploit
On April 1, 2026, attackers drained around $295 million in USDC, USDT, JUP, wrapped BTC, wrapped ETH and other assets from nearly 20 Drift vaults in less than 20 minutes. Investigators described a carefully prepared operation rather than a simple contract bug:
- The attackers used Solana’s durable nonce feature, which lets a signed transaction be executed much later. Transactions approved by Drift’s security council weeks earlier were held and then executed at the moment of the attack.
- Staging on-chain began around March 10, including a purpose-made token with a small Raydium pool that played a role in price manipulation.
- Members of the group reportedly built trust with Drift contributors over weeks, including at industry conferences.
- Elliptic and Mandiant linked the attack to DPRK-affiliated actors. Circle froze about $3.36 million in USDC, and a bounty with Bybit was offered for recovered assets.
DFX recovery tokens and the recovery pool
In May 2026 Drift published a recovery plan. Instead of promising an immediate refund, it issued transferable Solana tokens called DFX to affected wallets, one DFX for each dollar of verified loss, about 299.5 million DFX in total. Key points:
- Redemption opened on October 1, 2026 at dfx.drift.trade/recovery-pool. At launch, the pool paid about 0.0104 USDT per DFX, roughly one cent on the dollar. Claims run until January 1, 2028.
- Redeeming burns your DFX. Once redeemed, those tokens no longer share in future deposits to the pool. Holding keeps your claim on future inflows.
- The pool grows from revenue. Velocity sends part of its net protocol revenue to the pool every day at midnight UTC, on a sliding scale: 60% of the first 30,000 USDT, 70% of the next 70,000 USDT and 90% of anything above 100,000 USDT. Recovered stolen funds and external commitments are added as they arrive.
- Outside support. Tether committed up to 127.5 million USDT for the relaunch and recovery, introduced progressively, and strategic partners pledged up to a further 20 million USDT.
- DFX is tradable. Holders can sell DFX on secondary markets instead of redeeming, which transfers the future claim to the buyer.
The decision between redeeming now and holding depends on how much revenue you expect the new exchange to generate. That is a judgement about the business, not a sure thing.
Velocity: the relaunched exchange
Drift rebranded to Velocity effective July 1, 2026 and reopened to the public in late September after audits. OtterSec reviewed the code and reported 154 findings, none rated critical, while Asymmetric Research handled operational security. The code is open source and the new deployment uses a fresh program address with rotated keys and time-locked admin actions. Co-founder Cindy Leow announced her departure as a new team took over.
The product is narrower than the old Drift. According to velocity.exchange, it offers crypto and equity perpetuals with up to 20x leverage on selected markets, settles in USDT rather than USDC, accepts wBTC, wETH, SOL and USDT as collateral in one account, pays lending APY on deposits, and has an insurance fund that users can stake into. There is a referral scheme paying 10% of referred users’ fees, with a 5% fee discount for the person referred. There is no announced points program, and no statement that Velocity activity will be rewarded with DRIFT or any new token.
If you want to trade on Velocity
- Use the official domain. Go to velocity.exchange directly, or follow the link from the @VelocityDEX account on X.
- Connect a Solana wallet such as Phantom, Solflare or Backpack, and keep a little SOL for fees.
- Deposit USDT first. It counts at full value as collateral, while other assets are discounted at published rates.
- Start with low leverage. Learn how margin, funding and liquidation are displayed before taking larger positions. Equity perps follow stock prices but trade around the clock, so gaps and thin liquidity are possible.
- Read the insurance fund terms before staking in it. Insurance fund stakers absorb losses when liquidations go wrong, which is where the yield comes from.
Risks that apply here
- Operational security. The 2026 exploit came through signing processes and social engineering, not just code. Audits reduce contract risk but cannot rule out the same kind of attack.
- No guaranteed reimbursement. Recovery depends on future revenue, partial asset recovery and partner funding. At the time of writing the payout ratio is about 1%.
- Stablecoin dependence. Settlement in USDT ties the exchange closely to Tether, which is also its largest backer.
- Leverage and liquidation. Perpetuals can wipe out a position quickly, and equity perps can move sharply around market opens and earnings news.
- DRIFT token. The token fell heavily after the exploit, and its role under the Velocity brand has not been clearly redefined.
Spotting fake Drift, DFX and Velocity pages
A recovery program with a token and a rebrand is a perfect setting for phishing. Check every link against these points:
- The DFX redemption page is dfx.drift.trade/recovery-pool. The exchange is velocity.exchange. Lookalikes such as “drift-recovery”, “dfx-claim”, “velocity-dex” with odd extensions, or “drift.trade” with an extra word, are not official.
- The new X account is @VelocityDEX. Impersonators reply to it with “DFX bonus claim” or “early redemption at 100%” offers.
- Redemption returns USDT at the current pool rate. Any page offering a higher fixed rate or a “full refund” for a fee is a scam.
- Durable-nonce attacks showed how dangerous it is to sign transactions you do not understand. Reject any signature request on a claim page that you did not reach from the official domain.
- No team member will DM you about DFX or ask for a seed phrase.
FAQ
Can I still earn Drift points?
No. FUEL ended with the June 2025 snapshot, and Velocity has not announced a points program.
Should I redeem my DFX now?
That is a personal decision. Redeeming now pays about one cent per dollar and burns the tokens; holding keeps a claim on future revenue-funded deposits.
Is Velocity the same protocol as Drift?
It is the same team’s rebuilt exchange under a new brand, with a new program deployment, new keys and a narrower, perps-focused product.
Do I need to do anything with my old Drift account?
If you lost funds in the exploit, check your wallet for DFX and use the official recovery page. For balances that were not affected, follow the instructions published on the official Drift and Velocity channels rather than advice in Discord DMs or replies.
Verdict
For anyone who came looking for Drift points, the honest answer is that the points era is over. The live questions are about recovery and trust: whether to hold or redeem DFX, and whether Velocity has earned your collateral. Use only the official recovery page, start small if you trade, and treat every “Drift claim” link outside the official domains as an attack. This article is not financial advice.
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- Extended Points Program 2026: How to Earn Points and Track Future Token Eligibility
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