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Circle Internet Group (NYSE: $CRCL ) has been hit with a class action lawsuit from a group of Drift Protocol investors who lost money in the recent $280 million U.S. hack.

The exploit of Drift on April 1 was one of the largest attacks in decentralized finance (DeFi) history.

The lawsuit filed against Circle, the company behind the USD stablecoin (CRYPTO: $USDC ) accuses the company of failing to act to freeze the stolen USDC coins that were lost in the hack.

"Circle allegedly took no action to freeze the funds, despite having the technical and contractual authority to do so," lawyers for the plaintiffs said in a written statement.

Drift Protocol, a Solana-based decentralized crypto exchange, suffered a major attack after hackers gained unauthorized access to its platform.

The exploit has since garnered more attention after Drift revealed that the hackers spent six months posing as a quantitative trading firm on its platform.

Circle Internet Group has been criticized for not freezing USDC linked to the hack quickly.

The class action lawsuit further alleges that, nine days earlier, Circle had frozen 16 unrelated wallets in a separate civil case, "demonstrating both the capability and willingness to act."

Earlier this week, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire defended the company's actions in the Drift exploit, saying that the company only freezes wallets at the direction of law enforcement or the courts.

Circle has not commented publicly on the class action lawsuit.

Meanwhile, Drift said on April 16 that it has secured a proposed recovery package of up to $127.5 million U.S. from Tether (CRYPTO: $USDT ) and $20 million U.S. from other partners.

CRCL stock has risen 30% over the last 12 months to trade at $108.32 U.S. per share.

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