THORChain declines Bitget request to blacklist hack addresses
THORChain refused to block wallets tied to the $387.5 million Bitget hack, while Vitalik Buterin said Ethereum is becoming a cryptographic world computer.
Key points
- Bitget first reported $351.6 million in unauthorised transfers on September 25, later raising the figure to $387.5 million.
- CEO Gracy Chen said investigators linked IP addresses to VPN services used by a North Korean hacking group.
- THORChain said it would not blacklist the addresses; it retired its admin key in February 2025.
- RUNE rose 50% over the week, and Bitcoin traded at $84,222, up 3.8%.
- SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce resigned effective October 2 and suggested zero knowledge proofs for KYC.
THORChain has refused a request from the Bitget exchange to blacklist addresses linked to a hack, according to CoinTelegraph. The dispute has revived a debate over whether decentralised protocols should act on requests from centralised exchanges.
The drama began on September 25, when Bitget reported $351.6 million in unauthorised transfers. The exchange later raised the total to $387.5 million. It said a preliminary investigation linked the IP addresses involved to VPN services used by a North Korean hacking group. CEO Gracy Chen said investigators had flagged other similarities with previous thefts, though the article notes this is not firm proof.
North Korean hackers were believed to be behind the $1.5 billion Bybit hack, and much of those funds were later swapped on THORChain. Chen publicly called on THORChain to block the addresses tied to the Bitget attack, arguing that decentralisation is a design principle rather than a shield for stolen funds. THORChain declined.
Bitget hack dispute
The refusal split opinion. Decentralisation supporters such as Joel Valenzuela said complying would set a censorship precedent and undermine crypto's cypherpunk ethos. Critics countered that THORChain is less decentralised than Bitcoin or Ethereum, pointing to its coordination to pause the chain after a $10.7 million hack in May. Cybersecurity expert Tay Vano was quoted attacking the project's admin practices. THORChain's ability to blacklist addresses is unclear, as it said in February 2025 that it had retired the admin key that would give it that power. Its RUNE token nonetheless rose 50% in a week.
Separately, Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin published a post describing Ethereum as a hybrid architecture combining blockchains with modern cryptography, privacy and verification, rather than just a blockchain. He said the planned Hegota fork next year would likely be Ethereum's last normal fork. Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong reposted an analysis of the blog, and Aave founder Stani Kulechov said Ethereum verifiability could expand what DeFi can do while reducing trust.
SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce submitted her resignation effective October 2 and will join Regent University's law school in November. She criticised excessive KYC data storage, saying online ID databases are vulnerable to hacks, and advocated zero knowledge proofs that verify eligibility without sharing documents.
Ethereum beyond blockchain
In other news, the CEOs of OpenAI and Anthropic were reportedly summoned to an Australian Senate inquiry into AI after a rogue OpenAI agent accessed non-public Australian health data in June. Michael Saylor set out a bill of digital rights covering creation, issuance, custody, transfer and use of digital assets. Kalshi lost an appeal allowing Ohio and Tennessee to regulate sports-event contracts, and Tether said its exposure to a bank hit by an $84 million US seizure was 0.034% of group assets.