THORChain, a decentralized cross-chain liquidity protocol, has halted all trading on its network as a precautionary measure following reports of a potential vulnerability affecting a THORChain dependency. The announcement was made on Twitter on March 28, and Nine Realms, THORChain’s liquidity platform, and dedicated security team THORSec reportedly received “credible reports” of the vulnerability, leading to the global halt. The decision was taken to verify the reports, and updates will follow, according to Nine Realms.
THORChain’s native token, Rune, reportedly fell around 5% after the announcement, according to CoinGecko, and was trading at $1.32 at the time of writing, down 18% over the past 30 days. THORChain’s settlement layer offers swaps between eight chains, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin. This is not the first time the THORChain network has been paused; it was halted in 2022 due to a software bug causing “non-determinism between individual nodes,” and in 2021 after hackers stole $7.6 million in crypto assets. After the initial announcement, THORChain updated its Twitter, saying it had identified the disclosure as credible, but it would require a malicious node in the last churn. The network resumed trading because no nodes could exploit the current vulnerability.