During September, THORChain experienced a dramatic increase in income, fueled by Bitget-related flows that triggered the protocol’s busiest period in over a year.
Last month, the cross-chain exchange recorded $3.01 million in system revenue—its peak since March 2025—while swap volume reached $2.40 billion, marking a high not seen since June 2025.
A significant portion of this activity was concentrated into a five-day window immediately following the Bitget security breach. Between Sept. 25 and Sept. 29, approximately $1.37 billion (or 57% of September’s total swap volume) passed through THORChain, generating about $1.9 million in revenue, which accounts for roughly 63% of the monthly figure.
THORChain noted that this surge aligned with the movement of funds tied to the Bitget exploit across the network. The protocol elaborated:
“Between September 25 and 29, daily volume ran between roughly $190M and $460M as funds linked to the Bitget exploit moved through the network.”
This heavy concentration underscores the financial impact of a stance THORChain maintained as Bitget attempted to restrict the transfer of the stolen assets.
Following the breach, THORChain declined to implement selective interventions, maintaining that the platform operates on a decentralized and permissionless framework comparable to Bitcoin, Ethereum, and BNB Chain.
Furthermore, the protocol differentiated between a network halt—an emergency safeguard meant to safeguard THORChain itself—and the censorship of specific addresses or transactions. It referenced its May exploit, where hackers made off with $10.7 million from liquidity pools without being barred from later swapping assets via the network.
According to Bitget, the September attack resulted in roughly $387.5 million being transferred to addresses controlled by the hackers.
THORChain’s record activity came without a user boom
Wallet statistics indicate that the revenue spike was driven by unusually large transactions rather than a matching surge in active users.
The number of active wallets rose from 23,500 in August to 25,000 in September, while newly created wallets increased slightly from 21,800 to 22,400. THORChain observed that wallet engagement showed little reaction to the late-month volume surge, indicating that the activity stemmed from concentrated trades executed by a limited group of participants.
This dynamic adds complexity to the optical gains in the protocol’s financial metrics.
September revenue multiplied nearly fivefold compared to August’s $615,000, and swap volume nearly quadrupled from $613 million. Nevertheless, the vast majority of this extra activity occurred within a brief timeframe during the cross-chain movement of hack-associated funds.
This temporary surge also drove up rolling yield figures. On Sept. 29, the seven-day annualized return for RUNE hit 69.03%, while TCY’s return climbed to 29.74%. THORChain anticipates that these metrics will drop as those high-fee days exit the calculation period.
Meanwhile, frontend affiliates generated approximately $840,700 in September, with anonymous affiliates taking in about $669,000.
Moving forward, liquidity providers and token holders face the challenge of determining whether standard trading volume can sustain the elevated returns seen in September.
Should trading volumes return to pre-hack averages while user growth stays low, both income and trailing yields may experience a steep drop. For lasting growth, THORChain must manage to turn September’s spotlight into consistent, ongoing volume from regular traders and integrators instead of depending on rare spikes driven by massive single transactions.