News about RUNE

THORChain has restored trading on Bitcoin, Ethereum and several other networks after a weekend halt, while BNB Smart Chain, Cosmos Hub and Solana still show warnings. According to CoinMarketCap, the RUNE token traded around $0.64 on Wednesday, up approximately 15% over the previous day. The disruption began when a one-block Ethereum reorganization removed a 10 ETH deposit that THORChain had already credited; after a swap failed its price limit, the protocol issued refunds against funds its vault never received, causing an extra 10 ETH payout and an automatic pause. Chainalysis said the pause had inadvertently delayed laundering of funds stolen in the $6.3 billion Binance hack by North Korean hackers.

THORChain node operators paused swaps involving assets on 10 networks, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and Tron, after a refund bug surfaced during an Ethereum block reorganization at 11:34 UTC on Saturday. A 10 ETH deposit that THORChain had credited was removed by the reorg, yet the protocol still refunded it while also refunding the sender's actual deposit, creating an extra 10 ETH payout that triggered an automatic pause. The team warned that a malicious actor could exploit this mismatch during future block reorganizations on external chains. According to Chainalysis, the halt also delayed North Korean hackers' laundering of funds stolen in last week's $6.3 billion Binance hack, since they could not swap through most of THORChain's bridges. Meanwhile, the FBI urged node operators and DeFi services to block transactions tied to addresses used by TraderTraitor, and founder John-Paul Thorbjornsen opposed shutting the protocol down in response to pressure over illicit funds.

RUNE rose more than 13% to $0.67 from a local low of $0.59 at 12:20 a.m. UTC, according to TradingView data, after Binance confirmed the $6.3 billion hack. Onchain investigator ZachXBT said funds stolen from Binance and Bitget's September hack passed through THORChain and were combined at the same Ethereum address, and that the Bitget attack was attributed to North Korea-linked TraderTraitor. TRM Labs and Chainalysis also linked the Binance hack to the group. North Korean hackers had previously used THORChain to launder funds from the $1.4 billion Bybit hack and the $388 million Bitget hack. THORChain rejected Bitget CEO Gracy Chen's call to block the attacker's addresses, saying it cannot block individual swaps, though node operators can pause trading across a blockchain or the network. Validator TCB threatened to leave unless the protocol stopped processing North Korea-linked funds.