BREAKING: THORChain Suffers $10M Exploit Across Bitcoin, Ethereum, BSC, Base Chains

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BREAKING: THORChain Suffers $10M Exploit Across Bitcoin, Ethereum, BSC, Base Chains

THORChain, a decentralized cross-chain liquidity protocol, has paused trading after blockchain security researchers flagged an exploit worth over $10 million. The protocol has reportedly suffered an exploit across Bitcoin, Ethereum, BSC and Base. As a result, RUNE price crashed 12% in a few hours.

THORChain Hit By $10M Crypto Losses in Exploit

On-chain investigator ZachXBT on May 15 flagged an exploit on THORChain, claiming losses exceeding $10 million. The funds are stolen across multiple major blockchains, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain (BSC), and Base.

In response, THORChain has halted all trading and swaps via its emergency protocol to contain the damage. The exploit involved large unauthorized outflows from THORChains router contracts across the affected chains.

Many security researchers and analytics platforms such as PeckShieldAlert revealed the attackers wallets. Notably, the wallets hold 36.85 BTC, 3,443 ETH, and 96.6 BNB, along with other tokens like USDT, USDC, and WBTC, according to Arkham data.

THORChain Exploiter Wallets Crypto Assets. Source: Arkham

The incident triggered THORChains built-in halt mechanism, where nodes pause operations upon detecting the exploit to protect liquidity providers (LPs). This is reportedly the second notable security event for THORChain this year, amplifying concerns about DeFi interoperability risks.

Recently, KelpDAO suffered a hack worth $290 million. The attacker drained rsETH through KelpDAOs LayerZero-powered cross-chain bridge, risking contagion to other DeFi protocols such as Aave.

RUNE Price Crashes 12% amid Market Reaction

RUNE price fell 12% in just a few hours, with the price currently trading at $0.520. The 24-hour low and high are $0.502 and $0.597, respectively. Furthermore, trading volume has increased by almost 140% over the last 24 hours as investors book profits amid a decline in prices.

In contrast, CoinGlass data showed massive buying in the derivatives market. At the time of writing, the total THORChain futures open interest jumped more than 6% to $24.80 million in just an hour. RUNE futures open interest spiked 19% in the past 4 hours, with an almost 17% and 19% jump on Binance and Bybit, respectively.

THORChain Futures Open Interest. Source: Coinglass

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