THORChain Protocol Token RUNE Surges 13% After Binance Hack

The RUNE token of the THORChain protocol rose by more than 13% on Friday after Binance confirmed a hack of $6.3 billion. At the time of publication, RUNE was trading at $0.67, up from a local low of $0.59 at 12:20 UTC according to TradingView.

Blockchain researcher ZachXBT reported on Friday that the funds stolen from Binance and in September from Bitget passed through THORChain before being consolidated at a single Ethereum address. According to him, the attack on Bitget is linked to TraderTraitor, a group associated with North Korea. TRM Labs and Chainalysis have also linked the Binance hack to this group.

THORChain allows for the exchange of assets between different chains. North Korean hackers previously used the protocol to launder funds from Bybit amounting to $1.4 billion in February 2025 and to move money from Bitget totaling $388 million.

Following the attack on Bitget, Bitget head Gracy Chen urged THORChain to block the attacker's addresses: “Decentralization is a design principle, not a shield for facilitating known stolen funds.” THORChain rejected the request, stating that it has no mechanism to block individual exchanges, but node operators can suspend trading for the entire chain or across the network. The Bybit hack also divided contributors: lead developer Pluto announced his departure after the suspension of Ethereum trading was canceled, and validator TCB threatened to leave if the protocol does not stop processing funds linked to North Korea.