- THORChain has refused a formal request from Bitget CEO Gracy Chen to block addresses linked to the $380 million exchange hack.
- The decision comes amid accusations of hypocrisy, as THORChain validators halted the network for its own $10 million hack in May.
- Protocol volume surged to $678 million in the two days following the Bitget exploit, generating nearly $1.2 million in income.
Following Thursday night’s $380 million hack of centralized exchange Bitget, the DeFi protocol THORChain has formally turned down a plea to blacklist the attacker’s wallets. CEO Gracy Chen publicly appealed to the network, stating that “decentralization is a design principle, not a shield for facilitating known stolen funds.”
However, THORChain responded that it is “decentralized and permissionless,” comparing itself to Bitcoin, Ethereum, and BNB Chain. The rebuttal drew criticism, as BNB Chain validators famously halted the network in 2022 to prevent a $600 million thief from extracting funds. Consequently, THORChain‘s refusal appears inconsistent, given that its validators halted trading to protect the protocol after its own $10 million exploit in May.
Meanwhile, blockchain security firm SlowMist echoed Chen’s request, urging that decentralization not become an excuse. The debate has intensified as data from THORChain’s dashboard shows its processing of $678 million in the two days after the hack, compared to a daily average of $20 million to $60 million the prior week.
This isn’t the first time the protocol has been a focal point for stolen funds. THORChain swaps were used to move the majority of the $1.5 billion stolen from ByBit in February, an incident also attributed to North Korean Hackers. Investigators, including Specter who connected the Bitget hack to known wallet patterns, noted similar volume spikes following April’s $280 million Kelp DAO theft.
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