THORChain Restarts Most Swaps, With 14 Nodes Yet to Upgrade

THORChain said Nov. 3 that swapping had resumed following its 3.21.1 update, with trading available on 10 external blockchains alongside native RUNE. Three connected networks remain halted, and the project says 14 active nodes still need to upgrade to fix swap performance.

The decentralized cross-chain exchange's public node API showed trading enabled for Avalanche, Base, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Tron, $XRP Ledger and Zcash. Cosmos Hub, $BNB Smart Chain and Solana remained restricted.

The network's settings also showed outbound transaction signing enabled on all 10 reopened external networks. Both trading and signing remained halted for the other three, preventing swaps and outbound payments on those routes.

THORChain's External-Chain Trading Status (Dates in UTC)

Table dates are UTC retrieval dates. Snapshot: Nov. 4, 2026, 02:04 UTC / Nov. 3, 2026, 9:04 p.m. ET. 0 = trading enabled; 1 = halted. Source: THORNode Mimir. Outbound-signing restrictions match on all 13 external chains.

Of the network's 111 active nodes, 97 reported version 3.21.1 and 14 reported 3.21.0, according to public node data. THORChain linked the incomplete rollout to lingering swap performance problems: “All active nodes need to update to 3.21.1 to fix performance issues with swapping.”

Recovery After the Reorg

Bitcoin, Ether and Tron swaps were enabled again by 5:15 p.m. ET on Nov. 3, according to a historical node snapshot, following the emergency pause that began Oct. 31.

THORChain said the pause began after a one-block Ethereum reorganization—the replacement of a recent block—exposed a refund flaw. A vault paid out 10 $ETH against a deposit it never received. The automatic solvency checker stopped $ETH swaps, and node operators subsequently halted chains as a precaution. The user returned the 10 $ETH, according to THORChain.

Cosmos Hub and Solana were already restricted before that incident, historical node data shows.

The 3.21.1 release notes describe a patch with no consensus change and instruct operators to install a private binary containing additional security patches. There is no coordinated upgrade height. THORChain has said nodes will decide to re-enable chains “as they are deemed safe”; its latest status post gives no reopening date for the three restricted networks.

Reopening Under an FBI Appeal

The reopening removes a barrier that blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis said had inadvertently delayed North Korean hackers laundering funds stolen from Binance.

In an Oct. 31 alert, the FBI attributed the theft of more than $6 billion from Binance to North Korea's TraderTraitor actors. It urged THORNode operators and other infrastructure providers to block transactions involving or derived from addresses linked to the theft.

THORChain's public position is that it was designed to be “permissionless, censorship-resistant, and public.” Its earlier refusal to block wallets associated with the Bitget hack was discussed in The Defiant's interview with technical co-founder Chad Barraford. The project says developers can recommend changes, but nodes decide whether to adopt them.

Updated Nov. 3, 2026, with THORChain's 3.21.1 announcement, current chain restrictions and the active-node version count.