THORChain is live again after a 34-day halt.
The cross-chain liquidity protocol restarted all network activity on Tuesday, following a series of security upgrades and a full vault migration. The team said those steps closed the vulnerabilities that allowed a $10.7 million exploit in late May.
That attack targeted a flaw in THORChain's swapping logic, letting the hacker drain RUNE and other assets from certain pools. The protocol suspended operations almost immediately after the breach, locking deposits and halting new trades.
Now the network is back, and the team has published a post-mortem detailing what went wrong and what changed. The fix involved rewriting parts of the transaction validation layer and moving all user funds into new vaults built with fresh keys. The old vaults – the ones the hacker exploited – have been permanently rotated out.
RUNE, the network's native token, has been under pressure since the incident. It traded around $1.40 before the pause and dipped below $0.90 during the downtime. Since the resumption announcement, it has reclaimed the $1.05 level, but volume remains below pre-exploit averages.
The timing matters. THORChain is one of the few protocols that lets users swap native Bitcoin and Ethereum without wrapping assets or using a centralized exchange. That niche kept it relevant even as competitors like Chainflip emerged. A prolonged shutdown risked permanent user migration.
The resumption is not a guarantee of full trust recovery. Traders will watch how quickly liquidity returns to the RUNE pools and whether the new vault architecture holds up under real transaction volume. The hacker, who pocketed roughly $10.7 million, has not returned the funds. That overhang could weigh on sentiment until the team demonstrates sustained uptime and secure operations.
The next verifiable checkpoint is the weekly pool liquidity report expected on Monday. If the numbers show a strong rebound in deposited assets, that will be the first concrete sign the market is willing to move past the exploit.
THORChain restarts after $10.7M hack, securing deposits and trading again
THORChain paused operations for 34 days after a hacker stole $10.7 million by exploiting its deposit system. Now restarted with security upgrades, the platform resumed trading, affecting users who rely on it to exchange Bitcoin and Ethereum directly.