Chainanalysis says Thorchain delayed laundering of stolen Binance funds after ethereum reorg
An emergency pause on Thorchain's cross-chain bridges followed an ethereum network reorganisation, halting swaps and limiting the movement of the $2.5bn stolen from Binance.
Key takeaways
- 1Thorchain's bridges are paused after an ethereum reorg, halting swaps
- 2The pause delays laundering of $2.5bn stolen from Binance
Chainanalysis said on Oct 31 that Thorchain inadvertently delayed the laundering of stolen Binance funds after an ethereum network reorganisation triggered an emergency pause. The halt stopped swaps across most of the protocol's bridges, extending the time available for investigators to trace the illicit proceeds.
The reorganisation forced Thorchain to suspend its cross-chain bridge functions. Chainanalysis said neither the hackers nor any other party can move assets through the protocol until the bridges are back online. The emergency pause was designed to protect the network from further exploitation while the reorg is resolved.
Thorchain is a cross-chain liquidity protocol that enables swaps without a central exchange. It became a focal point after the ethereum-based hack that drained $2.5bn from Binance, where attackers used a 2025 wallet upgrade and 50 signatures from Binance’s own wallet. YourKhabri reported that Binance set aside $6.34bn for customer losses and that Circle and Tether froze $823m and $971m respectively, while Synthetix recovered 8.4m SNX tokens.
The bridge outage delays the movement of the stolen funds, limiting the hackers’ ability to launder via Thorchain. Traders should watch for updates on when the bridges will resume and monitor any further alerts from Chainanalysis regarding the status of the frozen assets.
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