Circle responds to the Drift theft incident: USDC freezing must be enforced according to the law, calling for accelerated cryptocurrency legislation and improvement of security mechanisms

Circle Chief Strategy Officer Dante Disparte published a response regarding the over $270 million theft incident involving Drift Protocol. Disparte stated that Circle only freezes USDC when legally mandated to do so, and this is not a unilateral decision, nor is it a backdoor or algorithmic monitoring. This reflects the rule of law in internet-native financial activities.

He pointed out that the core issue facing open systems is that the legal framework's response speed lags behind technological development. Protocols, wallets, exchanges, and stablecoin issuers should regard security and accountability as a shared obligation, and DeFi protocols can develop on-chain technical protection measures by referencing the circuit breaker mechanisms of traditional markets.

He also called for the legislative processes of the U.S. GENIUS Act and CLARITY Act to incorporate due process, property rights, and financial privacy protection standards into law before the next major security incident occurs.