THORChain Restarts Most Swaps While Debate Grows Over North Korea-Linked Flows

THORChain has turned swaps back on for most of the chains halted after an Oct. 31 Ethereum reorg triggered a refund bug, according to THORNode data reviewed by Unchained on Nov. 3. Bitcoin Cash, Dogecoin, Litecoin and Zcash resumed first, followed by Bitcoin, then Ethereum and Tron. BNB Smart Chain remained halted as of 3:50 p.m. ET, while Cosmos Hub and Solana were also still offline and had already been halted before the reorg. The restart came after public debate over whether node operators should vote to upgrade the protocol and reopen the network while North Korea-linked actors could still use THORChain. In an Unchained episode recorded Nov. 2, Pangolin Intelligence founder Jonty, known online as tanuki42, said an operator voting yes would be doing so with the expectation that North Korea would use THORChain to launder stolen funds. He said he would not support that outcome. THORChain has said nodes will re-enable chains when they are considered safe and has stressed that no single developer or entity controls the protocol. The report also revisits a dispute over Arkham’s now-deleted claim that the Binance hacker had deposited funds to Binance, with Jonty and onchain analyst SomaXBT arguing the traced flows involved THORChain’s Asgard vaults and liquidity routes rather than direct hacker deposits.