THORChain's RUNE Climbs 11% While Swaps Stay Halted on 10 Chains After Ethereum Reorg Bug

Published November 3, 2026, 10:00 AM PKT. Based on Binance spot market data for RUNEUSDT on November 3, 2026 (primary market source), THORChain's November 1, 2026 incident post as reported by Cointelegraph and PANews on November 2 (primary incident source), and Unchained's November 2, 2026 report with Chainalysis commentary (secondary sources). MABOnChain previously covered THORChain's October 17 hack and flagged this swap halt as a watch item in November 1 runs; this is the site's first article on the halt itself.

THORChain's RUNE token climbed about 11% in 24 hours on November 3, 2026, even as the cross-chain protocol's swaps stayed halted on 10 chains. Binance spot data put RUNEUSDT at $0.555 at about 04:52 UTC on November 3, up 11.4% from a $0.498 previous close, with a 24-hour high of $0.57 and about 6.21 million RUNE traded worth about $3.36 million. CoinGecko's trending list, which put RUNE among the day's most searched coins, showed a similar move, up 10.1% in 24 hours to $0.5515, with a market value of about $181.6 million. The rise is a rebound, not a new high: RUNE had jumped more than 13% on October 30 to about $0.67 from a $0.59 low after Binance confirmed its $6.3 billion hack, according to TradingView data cited by Coinranking, before sliding back toward $0.50 as the halt took hold.

The 11% rebound off $0.498

The timing of the rebound matters because it runs against the halt, not with a reopening. No chain had been switched back on as of Monday afternoon, November 2, according to node data cited by Unchained, and THORChain had given no restart date. Traders appear to be pricing two things at once: relief that the vault shortfall was closed when the user returned the 10 ETH, and attention on a protocol that has spent four days at the center of the largest hack laundering story in crypto. CoinGecko's trending placement, rather than any single announcement on November 3, is what put RUNE in front of retail search traffic on the morning of the move, and the Binance volume, about $3.36 million in 24 hours, is modest next to the protocol's October 30 spike, when AMBCrypto reported daily RUNE trading volume rising more than 393% during the activity surge.

The October 31 reorg and the double refund

The halt began at 11:34 UTC on Saturday, October 31, when Ethereum replaced one recent block with a competing version, in what is known as a one-block reorganization. THORChain had already credited a 10 ETH deposit contained in the discarded block. When the trade tied to that deposit could not fill at the sender's price, the protocol refunded the deposit, and, according to Unchained's account of THORChain's explanation, it refunded both the phantom deposit and the real one, leaving a vault 10 ETH short. THORChain's automatic solvency checker spotted the shortfall and halted ETH swaps. Within about two minutes, node operators also stopped ETH transaction signing, which blocks payouts from the vaults, and a three-node vote then paused every chain as a precaution so core developers could investigate. The sender has since voluntarily returned the extra 10 ETH, THORChain said, and the affected vault has regained solvency, according to PANews and Cointelegraph reports of the protocol's November 1 post.

Ten chains still halted, no restart date

As of Monday afternoon, November 2, node data showed swaps still halted on 10 networks: ATOM, BCH, BSC, BTC, DOGE, ETH, LTC, SOL, TRON and ZEC, Unchained reported. Trading continued on AVAX, Base, RUNE and XRPL. THORChain said node operators will decide to re-enable each chain once they judge it safe, and gave no date. That open-ended timetable is the key uncertainty for users: THORChain's own developer documentation warns against sending funds to a halted chain, since transactions can sit unprocessed until the halt lifts, and signing stayed enabled on most halted chains on October 31, meaning pending payouts could still leave while new swaps stayed blocked, according to status data reported by CoinDoo. The protocol has also not said what specific fix is planned, only that core developers are working on the necessary changes.

The laundering delay and the vault warning

The halt's most consequential side effect, according to Chainalysis, was accidental: it slowed the movement of funds stolen in Binance's October 29 hack, which the FBI has linked to the North Korean group TraderTraitor. Onchain investigator ZachXBT reported on October 30 that funds from the Binance hack and September's $388 million Bitget exploit passed through THORChain before being combined at a single Ethereum address, and THORChain says it has no mechanism to block individual swaps. Chainalysis said on Sunday, November 2, that the pause unintentionally delayed laundering of a large amount of the stolen funds, telling Cointelegraph that until the service comes back online, neither the hackers nor anyone else can swap through a majority of THORChain's bridges. Separately, THORChain warned that the underlying flaw is not closed by the returned 10 ETH: after any reorganization on an outside chain, a malicious actor could replay a transaction with the same nonce and be paid funds by the THORChain vaults. Founder John-Paul Thorbjornsen separately defended the protocol's commitment to permissionless transactions, warning against shutting it down in response to pressure over illicit funds, Cointelegraph reported.

What to watch next is concrete: a THORChain post describing the fix for how it handles external reorgs, node operators upgrading to it, ETH signing returning alongside trading on the halted chains, and the first chain re-enabled. Until then, the halt remains a live constraint on the protocol's core product, even as RUNE's price rebounds. This article is news reporting and is not investment advice.

Sources

• Binance data-api.binance.vision, RUNEUSDT 24-hour ticker and hourly klines (November 3, 2026, primary market source: last price $0.555, up 11.4% from $0.498 previous close, 24-hour high $0.57, 6.21 million RUNE volume, klines fresh within 1 hour at 04:00 UTC close $0.555)
• CoinGecko trending API (November 3, 2026, primary market source: RUNE among trending coins, up 10.1% in 24 hours to $0.5515, market value about $181.6 million, rank 175)
• Cointelegraph, THORChain Bug Halts Swaps Across 10 Networks (November 2, 2026, primary incident source: 11:34 UTC October 31 reorg, 10 ETH deposit, solvency checker halt, Chainalysis laundering delay quote, Thorbjornsen permissionless stance, no restart date)
• Unchained, A THORChain Bug Has Slowed North Korean Hackers Laundering Stolen Binance Funds (November 2, 2026, 6:05 PM ET, secondary source: double refund account, Monday afternoon node data with 10 chains halted and AVAX, Base and XRP trading, replay-with-same-nonce vault warning, no date)
• PANews, THORChain: User Voluntarily Returns 10 ETH, Vault Regains Solvency (November 2, 2026, secondary source: voluntary 10 ETH return, vault solvency restored, halted chain list, AVAX, BASE, RUNE and XRPL trading, node-vote emergency pause mechanism)
• Coinranking, THORChain Carried Stolen Binance and Bitget Funds as Scrutiny Grows (secondary source: ZachXBT October 30 trace of Binance and Bitget funds through THORChain to one Ethereum address, RUNE October 30 rise to $0.67 from $0.59, no mechanism to block individual swaps)