Solana’s decentralized finance (DeFi) total value locked (TVL) has recovered to $6.5 billion, a 38% increase in two months after the $285 million Drift Protocol exploit. The April 1, 2026, attack used social engineering, manipulated administrative privileges and a fake collateral token rather than exploiting Drift’s smart contracts directly. Tether committed up to $127.5 million to a revenue-backed recovery pool, while additional partners pledged another $20 million. Drift later relaunched as Velocity DEX with tighter administrative and vault controls. SOL’s rise from approximately $73 to $118 accounted for much of the dollar-denominated TVL recovery, while the protocol’s compensation model used recovery tokens tied to future revenues.