Drift Protocol
Headquarters
Sydney Australia
About us
To make futures DEXs the best way to trade and build the future of decentralized trading.
Built on Solana, Drift Protocol operates one of the largest decentralized exchanges in DeFi, handling over $50 billion in cumulative trading volume across 19+ million trades. The platform combines perpetual futures and spot trading with up to 101x leverage on major assets like SOL, BTC, and ETH. Users can trade across 100+ assets using any token as collateral, while a hybrid system mixing automated market makers with decentralized order books provides deep liquidity and minimal slippage. Beyond trading, Drift offers lending and borrowing services plus Drift Earn for yield generation up to 16% APY.
Products
The core product is a decentralized exchange offering perpetual futures with up to 101x leverage and spot margin trading across 40+ markets. Drift's hybrid liquidity system combines a virtual AMM, decentralized limit order book, and just-in-time auction mechanisms for institutional-grade execution. Additional products include Drift Earn for yield generation, lending and borrowing services with cross-margined risk management, and bespoke credit solutions for institutional clients. The platform features gasless trading, real-time risk monitoring, and a mobile app for position management.
Funding
Drift has raised over $52 million across multiple rounds, including a $3.8 million seed round, a $23.5 million Series A in May 2023, and a $25 million Series B in September 2024 led by Multicoin Capital. Jump Capital and Blockchain Capital are among the notable investors. Following a security incident in April 2026, Drift secured nearly $150 million in strategic support, including a $127.5 million commitment from Tether provided as a credit facility and ecosystem grants.
Recent news
In April 2026, Drift Protocol suffered a massive $285 million exploit linked to North Korean hackers who used social engineering to compromise multisig signers. Shortly after, Drift announced a nearly $150 million strategic collaboration with Tether and other partners to fund a user recovery pool and relaunch the platform.
Technology
Smart contracts are written in Rust using the Anchor framework on Solana. The frontend uses TypeScript and React, while backend infrastructure runs on AWS with MySQL for data management. Off-chain services include liquidators, arbitrage bots, and transaction indexers. The team maintains deep integrations with Solana RPC nodes and validators, plus offers open-source SDKs in both Python and TypeScript. Infrastructure also includes Docker for development consistency and integrations with oracles like Pyth Network for low-latency data.
Benefits
Drift operates fully remote with team members working from anywhere, though there's a preference for candidates based in North America or Australia. The company provides competitive salaries with upside potential through token packages, a laptop stipend, and organizes regular international team meetups. Health benefits and specific PTO policies aren't detailed in available sources. As an equal opportunity employer, Drift values diversity and bases employment decisions on merit and performance.