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Best Perpetual DEXs · Rank 08 of 8
Nobody yet — not until the relaunch lands and users are repaid
Last verified August 16, 20264 scored axes
Adverse event on record
Drift scores 4.5 out of 10 and ranks #8 of 8 in the best perpetual dexs table, strongest on funding & fees (7.0) and weakest on risk engine (3.5).
Drift was the most complete trading product on Solana until 1 April 2026, when DPRK-linked attackers social-engineered their way to protocol admin and took roughly $285–295m. Repayment runs through recovery tokens backed by a pool of about $148m from Tether and partners, and the relaunch was targeted at the second quarter of 2026.
4 axes, weighted as published in the table’s methodology. Each score below is read from the fact printed under it.
3.5/ 35% of the score
On 1 April 2026 attackers took roughly $285–295m after months of social engineering: DPRK-linked operators posing as a quantitative trading firm got Security Council members to pre-sign dormant transactions using Solana durable nonces, which handed protocol admin to the attacker. The earlier v1 halt in 2022 was settled in full — $19.5m of collateral repaid — but this loss has not been.
4.0/ 25% of the score
Trading is suspended pending a relaunch targeted at the second quarter of 2026, so there is currently no depth to measure; before April 2026 it held the deepest perpetual liquidity on Solana.
7.0/ 20% of the score
Fee and funding schedules remain published, but they price a venue that is not currently operating.
4.5/ 20% of the score
The failure was administrative, not a contract bug: pre-signed transactions transferred programme authority to the attacker. The rebuild promises rotated keys and a community multisig, and settlement moves to USDT.
DPRK-linked operators spent months posing as a quantitative trading firm, built trust with contributors, and then used Solana's durable nonces to get Security Council members to pre-sign dormant transactions. Those transactions handed protocol admin to the attacker, who removed roughly $285–295m. No contract was broken; the people around the contracts were.
Drift published an incident report and a recovery plan built on tokens that represent verified losses, redeemable from a pool starting near $3.8m and intended to reach roughly $148–151m with up to $127.5m from Tether and $20m from other partners. Settlement moves to USDT and the relaunch was targeted at the second quarter of 2026, with rotated keys and a community multisig. Users are not yet whole.
It is worth being fair about the earlier chapter: when Drift v1 was halted during the 2022 market stress, positions were settled and $19.5m of collateral was repaid in full. The team has done this once already, which is the strongest thing in its favour now. Before April 2026 the venue held the deepest perpetual liquidity on Solana with cross-margin across perps, spot and borrow.
We score the record, not the roadmap. Until the recovery pool pays out and the relaunched venue accumulates operating history, Drift sits last in this table and there is no case for depositing here.
On 1 April 2026 attackers linked to North Korea obtained protocol admin through months of social engineering, using Solana durable nonces to get Security Council members to pre-sign transactions that transferred authority. Roughly $285–295m was taken.
The published plan issues recovery tokens representing verified losses, redeemable from a pool funded by protocol revenue plus up to $127.5m from Tether and $20m from partners. Repayment depends on that pool filling; users are not whole at the time of writing.
The relaunch was targeted at the second quarter of 2026, with rotated keys, a community multisig and USDT as the settlement asset. Until it has operating history, we do not consider it a place to hold margin.
8 services in best perpetual dexs