THORChain (RUNE) traded near $0.64 on Wednesday, up about 15% over 24 hours, after the cross-chain protocol restarted swaps on 10 of its 13 listed external networks. The recovery followed the rollout of version v3.21.1, announced on X at approximately 02:01 UTC on November 4.
According to THORChain’s network status page, trading and signing were marked “OK” on 10 external networks. Swaps were live again on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Dogecoin, Litecoin, Tron and Zcash, while Avalanche, Base and the XRP Ledger kept running through the pause. BNB Smart Chain, Cosmos Hub and Solana remained halted, with no reopening date provided.
The halt began on October 31 at 11:34 UTC after Ethereum experienced a one-block reorganization. A 10 ETH deposit to a THORChain vault sat in the dropped block. THORChain had already credited that deposit, and when the related swap missed its price limit, the protocol refunded funds the vault never received. The sender’s real deposit was also refunded. An automatic solvency checker identified the 10 ETH shortfall and halted Ethereum swaps within about two minutes. Node operators then paused outbound Ethereum signing and stopped trading on nine more chains. THORChain later said the recipient returned the 10 ETH and that the replay method behind the double refund is now public.
The restart required node operators to install v3.21.1, which fixes swap performance issues. At the time of the announcement, 14 active nodes had not yet updated. THORChain is run by independent operators, so the release takes effect only as each one installs it.
Chainalysis said on November 1 that the pause delayed laundering of funds from the $6.3 billion Binance hack. The FBI has linked that theft to North Korean hackers tracked as TraderTraitor. On October 31, the FBI, U.S. Secret Service and IRS Criminal Investigation asked node operators to block transactions tied to the theft, but THORChain has no built-in way to block a single sender.
This was not the first halt this year. In May, an attacker drained about $10.7 million from one Asgard vault, and trading reopened on June 23 after 39 days offline. THORChain has said nodes will re-enable the remaining chains as they are deemed safe.
