Durable nonce tricks
Normal Solana transactions expire in about a minute. A durable-nonce transaction doesn't, so a drainer can hold your signature and use it later.
How it works
Durable nonces exist so transactions can be signed offline and sent later, which is useful for custody and multisigs.
A drainer can ask you to sign a durable-nonce transaction, then wait: sending it when you've topped the wallet up, or long after you've forgotten the site.
Because nothing happens right away, the victim doesn't connect the theft to the signature.
Red flags
- A transaction that mentions a nonce account or 'advance nonce'
- A site that says nothing happened after you signed, and asks you to sign again
- Offline-signing requests from sites that have no reason for them
Protect yourself
- Don't sign transactions on sites you don't trust, even if 'nothing happens'
- Use wallets that flag durable-nonce transactions
- Keep funds in a wallet that never signs for unknown sites
If you already signed
- Move funds to a fresh wallet; the old signature can't touch a new address
- Watch the old wallet for activity
Incidents using it 1
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Drift Protocol drained of $270M+ after signers pre-signed durable-nonce admin transactions
On Apr 1, 2026, an attacker took admin control of the Solana perps exchange Drift and drained its vaults of at least $270 million; SlowMist lists $285 million. Weeks earlier, Security Council signers had been led into 'unauthorized or misrepresented' approvals. Because those transactions used durable nonces, they stayed valid until the attacker chose to submit them. The funds were bridged to Ethereum, including more than $230 million in USDC via Circle's CCTP. No code bug was needed. The lesson for teams is that any durable-nonce signing request is high risk.
Drift Protocol (Security Council multisig)·Solana·$285M stolen·Since Apr 1, 2026·