THORChain Under Fire as Decentralization Debate Heats Up After $387M Bitget Hack
The Bitget hack on September 25, 2026, led to a reported loss of over $387 million. The attacker swapped stolen funds into ETH as outflows continued through the day. On-chain data showed that around $1.23 million worth of Ethereum linked to the attacker moved through Binance within roughly 48 hours.
OKX founder Star Xu questioned whether THORChain is truly decentralized, sparking a debate about how permissionless networks should treat known stolen funds. He argued that THORChain's TSS-plus-validator setup does not amount to genuine decentralization, as a defined group of validators collectively controls assets sitting in TSS vaults.
THORChain's official response described itself as decentralized and permissionless like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and BNB Chain, asking what responsibility major base-layer chains carry when stolen assets move through them. Critics pointed to an earlier episode: after the $1.46 billion Bybit hack, nearly $1.2 billion in stolen funds was reportedly routed through the same infrastructure.