THORChain's RUNE Token Surges 15% Following Resumption of Cross-Chain Swaps
Following a temporary halt caused by an Ethereum reorganization bug, THORChain resumed swapping operations on the majority of its supported blockchains, driving RUNE's value up 15% and incidentally interrupting Binance hack fund movements.
The RUNE token from THORChain experienced an increase of approximately 15% during the last 24-hour period as the decentralized cross-chain swap platform brought back trading functionality across the majority of its supported blockchain networks after operations were suspended over the weekend due to an Ethereum block reorganization incident.
According to data from CoinMarketCap, THORChain (RUNE) was changing hands at approximately $0.64 on Wednesday, reflecting a gain of around 15% compared to the prior day's trading session.
The network status monitoring page for THORChain indicated that both trading operations and transaction signing capabilities were displaying "OK" status on 10 out of 13 external networks that the platform currently lists. The three networks that remained problematic were BNB Smart Chain, Cosmos Hub and Solana, all of which continued displaying warning indicators for both operational functions.
Among the blockchain networks that had trading capabilities successfully restored were Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Dogecoin, Litecoin, Tron and Zcash. Meanwhile, Avalanche, Base and XRP had maintained their operational status even when Cointelegraph initially covered the service interruption on Monday.
Ethereum reorg exposed refund bug
The service interruption originated on Saturday following a single-block reorganization on the Ethereum network that effectively erased a deposit of 10 Ether which THORChain's system had already processed and credited to a user, based on statements from the protocol's official account.
When the swap transaction failed to satisfy its designated price threshold, THORChain's system executed a refund transaction for funds that its vault infrastructure had actually never received. The original deposit from the sender was simultaneously refunded as well, which created a duplicate payout totaling an extra 10 ETH and caused the system's automatic safety mechanisms to trigger a network-wide pause.
Following this incident, node operators made the decision to suspend trading operations across numerous networks while the development team conducted a thorough investigation into the issue.
The operational suspension had an unintended consequence of interfering with efforts to transfer funds that were stolen during the $6.3 billion Binance hack, as reported by blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, which noted that the service pause had accidentally created delays in money laundering operations attributed to North Korean hackers.
The restoration of service on multiple networks now provides users with renewed access to numerous cross-chain swap pathways.