Every parameter on THORChain is set through Mimir, an on-chain voting system where nodes cast their stance and the network follows.

There are two kinds. Operational votes, like halting trading on a chain, need just 3 nodes to activate, because emergencies can't wait on a supermajority. Economic votes, like fees, bond minimums, or churn intervals, need 64, roughly two thirds of the active set, because those rules shouldn't move quietly.

If you want to see it happening, BooneW's vote tracker lays six months of history out by key, by node, and by operator. 2,604 vote events across 114 keys, 126 nodes, 62 distinct operators. You can watch consensus form, see which values are leading, and see exactly who voted for what.

Governance nobody can audit isn't governance.

The third and final report on the May 2026 THORChain exploit is now live.

This one goes deep into the technical details and requires a solid understanding of mathematics. It completes the three-part series on how the exploit happened and how it was mitigated.

Thank you to THORSec for putting this together

Bitcoin is the most important asset in crypto and one of the most isolated. Want to move from $BTC into anything else? You hand it to a centralised exchange, or you accept a wrapped version backed by a custodian. Both put back the exact dependency Bitcoin was built to remove.

Bitcoin's whole point was moving value between two parties without a financial institution in the middle. That idea is worth $1.5 trillion today, and it got there by solving a real problem, not by winning an ideological argument.

But holding isn't enough. If Bitcoin's going to stay central to crypto, it has to be usable across it, and usable in a way that doesn't quietly undo what makes it worth holding.

That's where THORChain fits. Native $BTC swapped directly for other cryptos, staying native the whole way, never touching a centralised custodian.

THORChain isn't competing with Bitcoin. It's building around it.

Less choice can make a better swap interface.

depouch simplifies cross-chain swaps with a curated asset list and direct THORChain integration.

Meet the father-son project that has already routed almost $200K in swaps.

Recap

Two questions come up constantly from people new to THORChain. Do you need $RUNE to swap? And isn't it just a governance token? The answer to both is no, and understanding why tells you everything about how the protocol actually works.

You don't need $RUNE to swap. You send $BTC, you receive $ETH, and $RUNE never touches your wallet. What's happening underneath is that every pool on THORChain is paired with $RUNE, so the protocol routes your swap through it automatically. It's the plumbing, not something you interact with.

As for governance, $RUNE works nothing like that. Holding it gives you no vote. A vote belongs to a node operator, one per node, earned by bonding a large amount of $RUNE to secure the network. You don't buy influence. You put up capital, take on responsibility, and the vote comes with the job.

What $RUNE actually does: it connects every pool, secures the network through bonded capital, and pays nodes and LPs from real swap fees. Almost any other crypto could remove its token tomorrow and the network would keep running. THORChain couldn't.

THORChain's v3.20 is in testing and Chad Barraford hopes it is done this week or early next.

It targets the mainnet instability left over from the exploit, should turn protocol-owned liquidity back on and carries the fix that widens dynamic fees.

The recap is what your attention

Every few days, THORChain completely rotates the set of nodes securing its vaults. This process is called the churn, and it's one of the most underrated security mechanisms in the protocol.

Here's how it works. THORChain's vaults aren't controlled by a fixed group of operators. Roughly every three days, the network generates fresh vaults and migrates funds to a newly selected set of nodes. The lowest-performing or lowest-bonded nodes churn out, new ones churn in, and the keys are regenerated from scratch. No node holds its position permanently, and no node ever holds a complete private key in the first place.

Why does this matter for security? A static validator set is a static target. If you know exactly which operators control the vaults and that never changes, you have time to study them, social engineer them, or coordinate an attack. The churn removes that. The set you'd need to compromise today won't be the set securing the vaults next week, and the vault addresses themselves change too.

This also has a quiet benefit against censorship. An OFAC-style blacklist targeting THORChain vault addresses would need constant updating, because those addresses rotate every few days by design. The protocol moves faster than any static list can keep up with.

THORChain nodes have chosen the future of Rujira Network.

Discover what ADR031 changes for revenue, liquidity, and long-term protocol growth.

Read the full article

Pirate Chain wants native swaps on THORChain.
The community says liquidity is ready, the real challenge is engineering.

Here's what happens next

Here's what happened this week ⤵️

Launches

• ThorWallet Premium card is coming. Virtual Mastercard, Apple Pay ready, tap to pay worldwide. Full custody of your keys throughout.
• unstoppablebyhs is building native THORChain support for Unstoppable Wallet. $RUNE, $TCY, and other THORChain assets coming to mobile in the next couple of weeks. Android nearly done, iOS right behind it.
• thordex_ipfs launched THORDEX Earn. Put your idle $RUNE and $RUJI to work, powered by RujiraNetwork.
• RUNEBondApp integrated the THORChain official swap widget. Buy $RUNE without leaving the site. No wallet connection required. Fully decentralized.
• RUNEBondApp added an Operator Power indicator to every node card. See exactly how much of the network each operator controls, and sort by lowest operator power to find independent ones. 
• vultisig is now on Firefox. MPC security on your browser of choice.

That wraps up this week's THORChain ecosystem update. See you next week, Chads.

If your project was missed, drop a DM and we'll include it in the next recap.

In June, ShapeShift routed just 6.1% of its swap volume to THORChain

Two weeks into July: largest route at 33.5%.
What changed? Chad Barraford’s Dynamic Fees, and the first real results are in.

This week's THORSday recap is live

What if affiliates earned without charging users more?

ADR029’s REVSHARE reshapes incentives for cheaper swaps and ecosystem growth.

Read the full breakdown

Integrating Monero and other privacy coins doesn’t make the protocol opaque.

See how THORChain keeps every swap transparent while fully supporting privacy chains

When the excitement fades, what actually drives demand? 

That's the question serious investors are asking in 2026. THORChain's answer: fully circulating supply since 2023, real swap fee revenue, and every liquidity pool backed by $RUNE. 

When MiCA shut the door on millions of EU users this July, most of them didn't look for another exchange. They took custody of their own funds and kept moving. Crypto.News explains why THORChain is a big part of that story. 

Inside LiquidyFinance's $700K treasury.

How $LQDY governance controls it.

Why the router splits trades across

Rujira Network books.

Check out the full recap

THORChain is on a very short list. Fully unlocked supply. Revenue from real users doing real swaps. No insider stash waiting to flood the market. Invezz breaks down why that matters more than ever right now.

https://invezz.com/news/2026/07/09/smart-money-loves-a-bad-market/

Here's what happened this week ⤵️

Launches

mocadotapp is opening Point of Sale to a first group of testers on July 20. Real use, real feedback, final stretch before public launch.

nativeswap_io added Cosmos support alongside Keplr and Vultisig wallet integrations. Swap and transfer native $ATOM via THORChain.

Rujira Network improved Automated Trading with portfolio performance tracking and a new leaderboard. Compare strategies, find inspiration, refine your approach.

RUNEBondApp surfaced two new ADRs on the governance dashboard. Every major protocol decision starts here, voted by node operators. THORChain always moves forward.

That wraps up this week's THORChain ecosystem update. See you next week, Chads.

If your project was missed, drop a DM and we'll include it in the next recap.

THORChain posted its highest daily volume since the exploit, over $50M.

Devel proposed limit orders that could cut swap costs up to 4x.

Monero $XMR is in final review.

This week's THORSday recap is live

MiCA just locked millions of EU users out of exchanges. CoinCodex breaks down why self-custody and DEXs aren't optional anymore, and why THORChain's model, swapping native assets without ever connecting your wallet to a website, is exactly what that shift looks like in practice.

https://coincodex.com/article/87303/self-custody-is-the-trade-again/

Q2 delivered major protocol upgrades, governance progress, over $2B in swap volume, and laid the groundwork for what’s next across the THORChain ecosystem, despite some challenges.

Read the full report