RUNE Jumps 15% as THORChain Restarts Most Swaps After Outage

THORChain’s RUNE token jumped roughly 15% over the past 24 hours after the protocol brought cross-chain swapping back online on most of its supported networks. The recovery follows a weekend outage that was traced to an Ethereum block reorganization, which exposed a refund-related issue and prompted a broader pause across multiple network routes.

As of Wednesday, RUNE was trading around $0.64, up about 15% from the prior day, according to CoinMarketCap. THORChain’s own network status page later showed trading and transaction signing operating normally on 10 of its 13 external networks, while a handful of chains still displayed warnings for one or both functions.

Key takeaways

• RUNE rose about 15% in 24 hours as THORChain restored cross-chain swap functionality.
• THORChain reported full “OK” status for trading and signing on 10 of 13 external networks, with BNB Smart Chain, Cosmos Hub, and Solana still flagged.
• The outage began after a one-block Ethereum reorganization removed a 10 ETH deposit the protocol had already credited.
• A refund bug led to an additional 10 ETH payout and triggered an automatic pause, prompting operators to hold off while developers investigated.
• Chainalysis said the halt also delayed some activity related to laundering stolen funds linked to the Binance hack.

Swaps return across most THORChain networks

The disruption appears to have been largely contained to THORChain’s ability to execute swaps correctly after it encountered altered transaction history on Ethereum. Once fixes were implemented and operators resumed operations, THORChain status indicators switched back to “OK” for the majority of chains.

According to THORChain’s network status page, trading and transaction signing were functioning normally on 10 of 13 external networks. Networks that showed trading enabled included Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Dogecoin, Litecoin, Tron, and Zcash. Meanwhile, BNB Smart Chain, Cosmos Hub, and Solana continued to show warnings for both trading and signing, indicating that some routes still require additional stabilization or configuration.

In practical terms, this partial restart is important for users relying on THORChain’s cross-chain liquidity, because it determines where swaps can be routed without interruption. Even with the broader recovery, the remaining flagged networks mean traders may still face limited availability depending on where their assets originate and where they intend to receive them.

How an Ethereum reorg triggered the refund problem

THORChain’s account description attributes the start of the incident to a one-block Ethereum reorganization that effectively removed a deposit it had already credited. The protocol indicated that the affected amount was 10 Ether, and that the deposit no longer appeared as part of the canonical chain after the reorg.

What followed is where the incident turned into a broader operational halt. After a swap failed to meet its price limit, THORChain attempted to issue a refund against funds its vault had not actually received. The mismatch caused both the sender’s actual deposit and the already-credited 10 ETH to be refunded, resulting in an extra 10 ETH payout.

That chain of events triggered an automatic pause mechanism. Node operators then halted trading across multiple networks while developers investigated the underlying behavior triggered by Ethereum’s block reorganization and the refund logic used when swaps do not satisfy their conditions.

The episode highlights a common risk in cross-chain systems: assumptions about finality and state can be disrupted when underlying chains reorganize their history. Even short reorganizations can matter when accounting and settlement logic expect a deposit to remain valid. The immediate response—pausing operations and investigating—underscores the importance of safeguards, even if those safeguards lead to temporary service interruption.

Wider ripple effects beyond regular users

While the headline impact was on swap availability, the halt also had consequences for blockchain activity that depends on cross-chain movement. Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis reported that the pause inadvertently delayed laundering activity associated with the $6.3 billion Binance hack.

Chainalysis’s assessment suggested that attempts to move funds across networks were disrupted by THORChain’s stop, slowing downstream actions attributed to North Korean hackers. Although analytics firms are careful in how they attribute criminal activity, the key operational point for readers is that pauses in widely used infrastructure can affect both legitimate transaction flows and illicit strategies.

This is particularly relevant for investors and traders because infrastructure disruptions can create secondary effects: liquidity may become less reliable across certain routes, and activity patterns can shift as market participants seek alternate venues or wait for routes to reopen.

Partial restart means routing is improving, but not uniform

Earlier coverage from Cointelegraph described the halt after the block reorganization and its effects on swapping, following a Monday report on the incident. Since then, THORChain has moved from a broad halt to a partial resumption, with trading and signing back to “OK” on most of its external networks.

Still, the remaining warnings on BNB Smart Chain, Cosmos Hub, and Solana indicate that the situation is not fully normalized across all routes. Traders using THORChain will likely need to check the live network status before planning swaps, especially if their strategies depend on specific chains that are not yet fully operational.

For builders and liquidity providers, the incident also raises questions about how cross-chain protocols handle chain reorganizations and settlement reversals. Even when a protocol pauses automatically to prevent further inconsistencies, the user experience can be affected immediately. Over time, the expectation is that debugging efforts will result in more resilient refund handling during reorg conditions.

Going forward, the key thing to watch is whether the remaining flagged networks return to full “OK” status and whether THORChain shares more detail on how it corrected the refund/accounting path exposed by Ethereum’s reorganization. Until then, swap availability may remain uneven, even as overall liquidity access improves with the restart.