RUNE rallies 15% as THORChain restarts most swaps after halt

THORChain has restored trading on Bitcoin, Ethereum and several other networks following a refund bug, while three chains remain paused.

THORChain’s RUNE token rose about 15% over the past 24 hours as the cross-chain swap protocol restored trading on most networks following a weekend halt triggered by an Ethereum block reorganization.

THORChain (RUNE) was trading at around $0.64 on Wednesday, up approximately 15% over the previous day, according to CoinMarketCap.

THORChain’s network status page showed trading and transaction signing marked “OK” on 10 of its 13 listed external networks. BNB Smart Chain, Cosmos Hub and Solana continued to show warnings for both functions.

Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Dogecoin, Litecoin, Tron and Zcash were among the networks showing trading was re-enabled. Avalanche, Base and XRP were already operating when Cointelegraph reported on the halt on Monday.

Ethereum reorg exposed refund bug

The disruption began on Saturday when a one-block Ethereum reorganization removed a 10 Ether deposit that THORChain had already credited, according to the protocol’s account.

After the swap failed to meet its price limit, THORChain issued a refund against funds its vault had never received. The sender’s actual deposit was also refunded, resulting in an extra 10 ETH payout and triggering an automatic pause.

Node operators subsequently paused trading across multiple networks while developers investigated.

The halt also disrupted attempts to move funds stolen in the $6.3 billion Binance hack, according to blockchain analytics company Chainalysis, which said the pause had inadvertently delayed laundering by North Korean hackers.

The partial restart restores access to several cross-chain swap routes.

Related: THORChain halts swaps after block reorg bug, slowing Binance hackers

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