Solana Proposes Scrapping Feature Used in $270 Million Drift Hack

The Solana community is considering a proposal to deprecate the ‘durable nonces’ feature, the mechanism exploited in the $270 million Drift Protocol hack, with a target date no earlier than May 2027.

The draft Solana Improvement Document (SIMD) outlines a plan to remove the feature, which allows transactions to be signed offline and executed later. This change would force custodians, staking services, and other entities that rely on durable nonces to rebuild their infrastructure for moving assets.

The proposal is a direct response to the August 2024 exploit, where an attacker used a compromised durable nonce to drain funds from the decentralized exchange. The feature’s removal is intended to eliminate a class of security vulnerabilities associated with pre-signed transactions.

If adopted, the deprecation would follow a lengthy transition period, giving projects and service providers over a year to adapt their systems. The change underscores Solana’s ongoing efforts to harden its network security following high-profile incidents.