PANews reported on April 17 that, according to Cointelegraph, stablecoin issuer Circle is facing a class-action lawsuit due to a security vulnerability in the Drift Protocol. A Drift investor representing over 100 members filed a lawsuit in Massachusetts federal court, accusing Circle of allowing attackers to transfer approximately $230 million in USDC from Solana to Ethereum within hours during the April 1st theft of approximately $280 million from the Drift Protocol without intervention.

The lawsuit alleges that Circle aided and abetted asset conversion and acted negligently. The plaintiff's lawyer points out that Circle had frozen 16 USDC wallets in a sealing-up civil case approximately a week before the Drift incident, demonstrating its technical capabilities. ARK Invest's head of digital asset research believes Circle is in a dilemma; freezing funds without a legal order opens the door to arbitrary discretion.