RUNE up 15% after hackers use THORChain to launder stolen funds — What next?

THORChain’s native token RUNE rallied by over 15% in the last 24 hours as the broader market lost $160 billion in capitalization. The decline followed Binance’s hack, which saw the centralized exchange (CEX) lose around $6.30 billion.

Hence, the question: Why is the token’s performance independent of the general market right now?

Is THORChain abetting laundering of funds from crypto hacks?

Hackers have regularly used THORChain to launder funds stolen from the crypto market.

For instance, funds from the Binance hack were commingled to a similar address that received $388 million from the Bitget incident after arriving via THORChain. This evidence might be a suggestion that the same actor is likely responsible.

The pattern has been evident from the swap volumes and fees on the chain, which have increased significantly. Fees hit a weekly high of $11K, confirming a spike in network activity.

Swap volumes showed that a total of $62.08 million went through the mainnet, while $94 million was processed through its bridges in other wallets.

As far as the hack is concerned, $8.94 million was converted to Bitcoin [BTC], and Ethereum [ETH] accounted for $6.17 million, while other tokens were swapped for $1.18 million.

As a result of a spike in network activity, the daily trading volume of RUNE surged by over 393%.

However, users are still worried that the chain could be abetting the laundering of funds. This, because other chains like Arbitrum One [ARB] froze the funds, but THORChain did not. In fact, immediately after the incident, THORChain posted,

Digital money needs digital freedom.

While they did not support the hack directly, the language used combined with the timing of the post raised many concerns. One user on X mocked the post, commenting,

Free to hack.

RUNE faces resistance at $0.70 despite strong buying

On the price charts, RUNE rose aggressively from $0.58 to $0.723, but it could not stay above $0.70 for long. The brief dip below $0.60 came immediately after the hack incident, but the altcoin reclaimed it as the floor.

The $0.70-level has been a resistance for the past month, but the strong buying pressure failed at this zone.

Moreover, the MACD bars turned green and grew bigger, asserting the buying pressure. The Chaikin Money Flow (CMF) reinforced capital inflows into the chain, rising from -0.04 to 0.31.

Therefore, RUNE will remain in a bearish structure on the 4-hour chart unless $0.70 is turned into support. Otherwise, the altcoin could continue bouncing between $0.60 and $0.70, but there is a chance it could break down.

Final Summary

• RUNE surged by over 15% as hackers moved stolen funds via THORChain, leading to high network activity. 
• RUNE bulls are facing resistance at $0.70 despite strong buying pressure, suggesting that the rally could be short-lived.