Binance hacker: THORChain wash flow

Live swaps by hacker-tagged wallets and what it means for RUNE · built 2026-11-03 19:29 UTC · not financial advice

Live wash ticker loading…

Today via THOR (AVAX→BTC)

36,315 AVAX

≈ $0.31M · 3 swaps

BTC delivered so far

1.19 BTC

to bc1qa5n7…2dxr

Oct 30–31 TRX→ETH leg

3,555 ETH

≈ $8.1M out, 232 swaps

Still parked (est.)

~197K ETH

≈ $450M, waiting on ETH unhalt

Swaps by hacker-tagged wallets (auto-refreshes every 60s)

Time (UTC)	In	Out	≈ USD	Status	Tx
11-03 19:22	3,594 AVAX	…streaming	$31k	pending	11509837…
11-03 19:07	21,795 AVAX	…streaming	$186k	pending	0BC82659…
11-03 18:40	10,926 AVAX	1.1942 BTC	$93k	success	D1692E5B…

Wallets: 0x2a828d0b…2029 (Arkham: Binance Hacker) and Tron TB3viNbo…U5b. Data: THORChain Midgard.

Daily totals

Day	Asset	Swaps	In	Refunded	Net in ≈	Out ≈
Oct 30	TRX	53	8,126,717	3,087,975	$1.63M	$2.13M
Oct 31	TRX	179	29,733,727	15,610,833	$4.57M	$6.00M
Nov 03	AVAX	3	36,315	0	$0.31M	$0.09M

USD at current prices. Oct 30–31 had lots of partial refunds (THOR's refund bug window), so net is what actually crossed.

Hacker wash vs all THORChain volume ($M/day)

Normal THOR day is ~$40–50M. Oct 30–31 spiked to $158M and $186M (mostly the Bitget hack wash). Today's ~$0.3M is under 1% of a normal day.

RUNE, last 7 days

How much wash actually moves RUNE?

Now~$0.3M test drips, ETH still halted

Under $5M/day

Noise. Nobody notices

Under 10% of daily volume, a few $k in fees. Today sits here. Doesn't draw eyes or move RUNE.

$20–50M/day

Shows up on dashboards

Volume doubles, trackers post it, narrative trade starts. Guess: RUNE +5–15%.

$100M+/day (ETH bags move)

Oct 30–31 style

3–4x volume, ~$200k/day fees. Last time RUNE went 0.62 to 0.68 (+10%) then faded once flow stopped.

Nodes block / sanctions

Bad for RUNE

FBI asked THOR to block addresses. Protocol-level censorship or an OFAC hit kills the neutrality premium.

Why the effect is small: an ETH→BTC swap goes ETH→RUNE→BTC, so RUNE is bought and sold in the same swap. Net buy pressure is roughly zero. RUNE gains from fees (~0.1% of volume) and from the story, not from the flow itself. Even washing all ~$450M of parked ETH would be ~$0.5M in fees vs a ~$206M market cap.

Timeline

Oct 30–31

TRX→ETH through THOR, 232 swaps, ~3,555 ETH out to 0x2a82

Same days as the Bitget wash, THOR volume 4x normal.

Oct 31 – Nov 3

Reorg refund bug, ETH/BTC/SOL/TRON halted

THOR volume near zero. BTC came back Nov 3, ETH still halted.

Nov 3 18:40

First AVAX→BTC test: 10,926 AVAX → 1.194 BTC

USDC bridged from Solana via Circle, swapped to AVAX, sent to 0x2a82.

Nov 3 19:07 / 19:22

21,795 AVAX + 2,981 AVAX streaming to BTC

Same BTC address bc1qa5n7…2dxr. Another ~50k USDC staged on Avalanche.

ETH unhalt on THOR

The real trigger. Until then it's small side bags.