Thorchain Refuses to Freeze Bitget Hack Wallets
THORChain (RUNE)
Editor:
Eugene Serbin
According to thecurrencyanalytics.com, Thorchain declined Bitget CEO Gracy Chen’s request to freeze wallets linked to a $387.5 million hack on September 24. The protocol argued that blocking addresses contradicts its permissionless infrastructure, comparing the ask to telling Bitcoin miners to stop processing transactions. Joel Valenzuela from Dashpay supported this view, warning that blockchain rollbacks create messy precedents.
However, OKX’s Star Xu questioned Thorchain’s decentralization, noting its validators can coordinate to pause the network. Critics pointed to Thorchain’s May pause to protect its own vaults as evidence that it can intervene when risks are close to home. The protocol also refused to block transactions involving North Korean hackers in February 2025, despite FBI pressure.
Bybit’s founder offered help tracing funds, highlighting how cross-platform movement complicates recovery. This incident underscores the tension between censorship resistance and user protection in decentralized exchanges.
How the market reacted
Whalio's own Binance spot order flow for RUNE, measured when this story was written up on 28 September 2026. Not the outlet's figures.
RUNE is trading at $0.7600 with a 24-hour buy ratio of 54.6%, indicating that buyers are controlling more than half of the volume over the day. The 1-hour buy ratio has dropped to 49.1%, suggesting that immediate buying pressure is fading compared to the longer-term trend. Volume delta turned negative in the last hour at -$2,810, contrasting with a positive $67,265 over the past four hours. This shift implies that while sustained interest remains, short-term momentum is weakening. The CVD closed at +$2,569,424, showing that net buying has accumulated significantly over the day despite the recent dip.
The latest daily buy ratio of 45.1% sits at the 6th percentile of the last 323 days, against a median of 50.3% - 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.
Over the preceding week, RUNE saw a 34.5% price increase and traded at 3.66 times its average volume. The current 24-hour buy ratio of 54.6% is 3.1 points higher than the 7-day average of 51.5%. This indicates that today’s buying intensity is above normal levels for the coin. Net buying occurred on 5 of the last 7 days, with a total volume delta of +$6,752,302 for the period. This context suggests that the current market activity is part of a broader, unusual surge in interest rather than a routine trading day.