Circle responds to Drift theft: Calls for expedited crypto regulatory legislation; USDC freeze must be enforced in accordance with the law.

Circle's Chief Strategy Officer, Dante Disparte, responded to the Drift Protocol's theft of over $270 million on April 1st. He stated that Circle's freezing of USDC was only carried out when legally mandated, not a unilateral decision. This action was neither a backdoor nor algorithmic monitoring, but rather a manifestation of the rule of law in internet-native finance. He pointed out that the core contradiction of open systems is that the legal framework lags behind technological development. Protocols, wallets, exchanges, and stablecoin issuers need to consider security and accountability as shared responsibilities. DeFi protocols can learn from traditional financial circuit breaker mechanisms to build on-chain protection. He also called for the US's GENIUS Act and CLARITY Act to be enacted before the next major security incident, incorporating due process, property rights, and financial privacy protection standards into law.