THORChain Faces Backlash After Refusing to Blacklist $387.5M Bitget Hack Funds

Decentralized exchange THORChain is under intense scrutiny after refusing to blacklist addresses linked to a $387.5 million hack of centralized exchange Bitget. The incident, disclosed on September 25, 2026, initially reported $351.6 million in "unauthorized transfers" before Bitget upgraded the total. CEO Gracy Chen said preliminary investigations traced the attack's IP addresses to VPN services used by a North Korean hacking group—the same actors believed responsible for the record-breaking $1.5 billion Bybit exchange hack earlier this year. Much of the stolen Bybit funds were laundered through THORChain, prompting Chen to publicly call on the protocol to block addresses tied to the latest theft. "Decentralization is a design principle, not a shield for facilitating known stolen funds," Chen stated.

THORChain declined the request, igniting a fierce debate across the crypto community. Decentralization advocates like Joel Valenzuela defended the decision, warning that pressuring permissionless protocols to censor transactions would undermine crypto's cypherpunk ethos. However, critics pointed out THORChain's inconsistency: the protocol coordinated a rapid chain pause when it suffered its own $10.7 million hack in May 2025, suggesting it retains centralized control when convenient. Cybersecurity expert Tay Vano went further, alleging THORChain operators coordinate secret updates via Discord and abuse admin functionality. The protocol retired its admin key in February 2025, though its actual ability to blacklist specific addresses remains disputed. Despite the controversy, THORChain's native token RUNE has surged 50% in a single week.

Meanwhile, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin published an ambitious vision outlining Ethereum's evolution beyond a traditional blockchain into a "world cryptographic computer." Buterin's post signals a broader shift in how next-generation networks may handle computation, privacy, and trust at a global scale. While details of the full proposal remain forthcoming, the framing marks a notable departure from blockchain-first thinking and could influence how layer-1 and layer-2 architectures are designed going forward.