A wallet tagged 'Drift Exploiter 5' on Etherscan made 258 deposits on October 20, nearly draining its balance. The transfers are tied to the Drift hacker, who has now washed $63 million through Tornado Cash. The scale of the laundering leaves recovery claims from the Drift exploit in limbo.
What the 258 deposits did
The address labeled 'Drift Exploiter 5' spent October 20 pushing funds out in rapid succession. Etherscan shows 258 separate deposits. By the end of the run, the wallet was nearly empty.
That deposit count is high for a single day. It suggests a deliberate split-and-send approach, breaking the balance into smaller chunks rather than moving it in one transfer. The pattern is consistent with how Tornado Cash is used: funds go in from one address and come out elsewhere, breaking the on-chain link between source and destination.
The $63 million total is the figure tied to the Drift hacker's laundering through Tornado Cash. The October 20 deposits are the latest visible step in that process.
Why recovery is stuck
Once funds pass through Tornado Cash, tracing them back to the original exploit becomes far harder. The mixer pools deposits from many users before withdrawals, so the output can't be matched one-to-one with the input.
That's the problem facing anyone trying to recover the Drift funds. The $63 million figure is known, but the money has been broken into pieces and routed through a service designed to obscure where it came from. Recovery claims that depend on following the money now have little to follow.
The 'Drift Exploiter 5' label on Etherscan is a public tag, not a court finding. It reflects what blockchain observers have attributed to the address, and the October 20 activity gave them more to record.
The Tornado Cash angle
Tornado Cash has been a recurring destination for stolen crypto. It lets users deposit funds and later withdraw them to a different address, with the link between the two hidden by the pool.
For the Drift hacker, that means the $63 million doesn't sit in one place. It moves in and out, and the October 20 deposits are one visible slice of that flow. The 258 deposits in a single day show how granular the laundering has become.
Nothing in the public record shows where the withdrawn funds went after leaving Tornado Cash. The mixer's design is the reason that question is hard to answer.
What remains unresolved
The Drift hacker's $63 million has passed through Tornado Cash, and the 'Drift Exploiter 5' wallet is now nearly empty after 258 deposits on October 20. What hasn't been settled is whether any of the funds can be clawed back.
For now, the recovery claims remain in limbo. The on-chain trail points to Tornado Cash, and the next visible move — if there is one — will show up on Etherscan when the wallet labeled 'Drift Exploiter 5' or its associated addresses transact again.
