Coldcard Hacker Uses THORChain to Swap Stolen BTC
THORChain (RUNE)
Editor:
Eugene Serbin
nftenex.com reports that a Coldcard attacker has swapped approximately 10% of stolen Bitcoin via THORChain. This movement highlights a specific exit route rather than a massive market impact. THORChain allows users to swap assets across blockchains without a centralized intermediary.
The significance lies in how this cross-chain protocol complicates tracing by changing the form and network of the funds. On-chain observers, including the account intangiblecoins on X, flagged the wallet activity. A separate write-up via TradingView described the swap as a move from Bitcoin into ETH.
These are attributed observations rather than a fully verified wallet-by-wallet trace. The evidence does not yet include a complete reconstruction with transaction hashes or timestamps. This adds to the broader debate on hardware-wallet risks, with developer Peter Todd warning about single-signature Bitcoin risks. The event remains a reported security story without confirmed law-enforcement outcomes or recovery.
How the market reacted
Whalio's own Binance spot order flow for RUNE, measured when this story was written up on 4 September 2026. Not the outlet's figures.
RUNE is trading at $0.4900 with a 1-hour buy ratio of 71.3%, indicating strong immediate buying pressure. This contrasts with the 4-hour buy ratio of 37.1%, suggesting that the short-term surge is fading over a slightly longer timeframe. The 24-hour buy ratio sits at 51.6%, showing a balanced but slightly positive sentiment over the full day. Volume delta data reveals a net inflow of +$21,109 in the last hour, while the 4-hour delta shows a net outflow of -$43,374. Over 24 hours, the volume delta is +$43,487, but the cumulative CVD closes at -$75,299, indicating that larger sell orders have dominated the day's total volume despite recent buying. Spot volume for the period was $1,408,115 across 8,926 trades.
The latest daily buy ratio of 44.5% sits at the 5th percentile of the last 281 days, against a median of 50.4% - among the weakest buying days it has had.
Was that an ordinary day?
The same Binance spot measurements for RUNE, averaged over the days leading up to the story.
Compared to the preceding week, today's 1-hour buy ratio of 71.3% is significantly higher than the 7-day average of 46.5%, a difference of 5.2 points. However, the 24-hour spot volume of $1,408,115 is only 0.57 times the weekly average, indicating lower-than-usual trading activity. The weekly volume delta of -$597,471 contrasts with the current day's positive 24-hour delta of +$43,487. Price has declined 3.4% over the eight-day period, with only one day of net buying recorded in the week. This suggests that while immediate buying pressure spiked, the broader weekly trend remains bearish with subdued volume.