THORChain Governance — Comprehensive Overview

This page consolidates all governance activity from the THORChain Devs Discord: every ADR, chain halt, security event, node vote, exploit, chain-specific issue, and community governance debate. Data sourced via the inebotten selfbot on 2026-08-27.

For current live state, check /network#network-diagnostics. For dated incident and recovery context, see /governance.

At a Glance

Chain is currently halted at height 27,590,009 as of Aug 27, 2026 — see /network#network-diagnostics for live state.

ADR status totals: 17 passed, 3 pending/voting, 2 withdrawn, 1 draft.

Latest major incident: Full chain halt at height 27,590,009 (Aug 26-27, 2026) — block production stalled after Yevlec re-halt, chain frozen.

ADR Registry and Vote Tallies

Tally column key: "Passed (close)" = within ~10% of the rejection threshold or required explicit campaigning. "Passed (clear)" = comfortable supermajority. "Passed (default)" = Motion to Bypass with no dissent. "Passed (controversial)" = passed procedurally but with significant opposition in the commentary period.

This section breaks down every ADR by how it passed (or didn't) — which ones were genuine nail-biters, which ones sailed through, and which ones only passed because a Motion to Bypass avoided a formal vote.

Clear Winners (>70% support, little controversy)

• ADR-011 Lending — 73.3% (63/86, 1 dissent). "The biggest, and most difficult feature since MCCN." Even with 86 active validators, only one node voted against. Lending took nearly a year from inception to launch, and node operators were urged to vote explicitly because the community "will interpret a lack of vote as being apathetic."
• ADR-016 Affiliate Fee — 72% (72/100). The cleanest large-validator-set win in the archive. Reached supermajority within days, finished with 28 explicit dissents (all zeros, no commentary relays).
• ADR-008 DOFM — 68.2% (58/85) — close-but-comfortable. Passed the supermajority threshold on the last day of the 10-day window. The community had to publicly campaign for the last two votes ("We need two more votes from the nodes to pass adr 008. Any suggestions why they need so much time?") and ghostrider4486 was openly frustrated: "comon guys weak up and pass ADR 008!? devs please say something!"

Close Calls (passed but barely, or required active campaigning)

• ADR-029 Revenue Share (SwapKit) — 58.9% (56/95). The closest of the recent ADRs. Started the voting period needing active campaigning, with several nodes openly on the fence. SamYap and others ran a multi-week push ("Reminder for the NO to vote ADR029 (thanks SamYap) .. if there are any concerns to don't vote or vote against, it would be great to know why"). The YES vote only crossed 50% in the last days of the voting window.
• ADR-012 Scale Lending — ~52% in favor at one snapshot. This was the closest lending-related vote. Several nodes later removed their votes (climber2391: "It seems some nodes removed their vote towards ADR012. Is that right? Only 66 votes now. It used to be more than 70"). Vote decay and fatigue were real issues. Passed only because the 60M RUNE burn was bundled with the CR-200% change.
• ADR-031 Rujira Long-Term Alignment — Option 1 (JV) won, but voting fatigue noted. The vote request explicitly asked nodes to consider the recent $10M Asgard vault exploit and to choose a path forward. Option 1 was the strong consensus choice (sonofodin and aaluxx both endorsed it), but multiple commenters noted "voter fatigue" with simultaneous open votes (ADR-029, ADR-031, ADR-030, TORANCHOR mimirs all open at once).

Passed via Motion to Bypass (no formal vote — interpretive as "no one objected loudly enough")

These ADRs did not go through a make mimir vote. Instead, a contributor called a Motion to Bypass, which means the ADR takes effect after 7 days unless a node operator files an explicit make relay dissent. They are de facto unanimous but did not receive a positive vote of confidence.

• ADR-014 Reduce Saver Yield Target — pluto_x1: "Motion to Bypass succeeds. Devs will proceed to implement."
• ADR-015 Refund Synth Positions After Ragnarok — same, in the same hour.
• ADR-022 Per Block Swap Scoring — familiarcow: "Discussion on this ADR has been ongoing for ~1 month. Devs are in consensus. Will be calling a motion to bypass a vote."
• ADR-025 Move Dev Fund Address — _sonofodin: "I expect there to be no resistance here, imo." (prophetic — none came).

Contested / Controversial (passed but with significant opposition)

• ADR-018 Core Protocol Sustainability. Procedurally a Motion to Bypass, but with strong public opposition from yeguls, proofofsteve, multipartite, and others. The core concerns: (1) conflict of interest — 9R-controlled nodes would be voting on 9R's own funding; (2) ADR framework is not a funding framework; (3) the proposal was too centralizing; (4) Monero-style Community Crowdfunding System was proposed as a counter. The ADR was amended to add a 3-year sunset clause before passing. This was a hard-won compromise, not a clean win.
• ADR-017 Burn System Income Lever. The mechanism passed, but the rate has been gridlocked ever since. Current vote (Aug 2026): 5% — 35/95 (36.8%); 2.5% — 4/95 (4.2%); 1% — 25/95 (26.3%); 0.01% — 1/95 (1.1%). No single value has a supermajority.
• ADR-009 Reserve Income & Fee Overhaul. Procedurally passed, but the Reserve Income section was removed before passage as "contentiously large (may be addressed in a separate ADR)." The remaining USD-fee code shipped but EnableUSDFees was never set, so the protocol still uses RUNE-denominated fees. This is a de facto partial implementation.

Rejected / Withdrawn

• ADR-001 THORChat — not passed. Merged as a proposal in 2022 but never received node support. The chrisgrc ADR audit from 2024-08-06 still lists this as "the only one [not passed] that has been merged as an ADR doc."
• ADR-007 Increase Fund Migration & Churn Interval — withdrawn. _sonofodin argued the proposal "utilizes the churn and migration which have their own purposes to solve a problem that is unrelating" and that the same problem was better solved by a refund PR. pluto_x1 agreed: "ADR 007 withdrawn. Alternative 1 is being pursued instead."

Pending / Stuck Votes (as of Aug 2026)

• ADR-019 AutoBond. Open since 2024. moonmonkey_666: "Same solution: ADR 019" has been the punchline in dozens of debates about passive RUNE holders and bond providers, but no formal vote has been called.
• ADR-020 App Layer. Active in discussion, no formal vote.
• ADR-024 System Income to POL. "Rat's nest of discussion" per runetard. The vote is structurally unclear: "ADR024 > 1 = Yes — but yes to what? There are 4 possibilities as to how a Yes vote can be implemented." The original champion (cow) stepped down; boonedub took over. The discussion has stalled.

Chain Halts and Major Incidents

For historical events from 2021-2024, see the /governance page.

Chain-Specific Issues

XRP (Recurring Pain Vector)

• Jul 6, 2025: Double-spend, stuck outbounds, ~12h stuck outbound
• Jul 15, 2025: Scanning auto-halt flapping, bond slash triggered
• Oct 6, 2025: CEX swap refund issue
• Aug 19, 2026: Inbound stuck 100+ days (57/95 observations)

SOL (Scanner Wedges)

• Feb 27, 2026: Scanner inflation bug (fixed in 3.16.0)
• Mar 31, 2026: Double-spend vulnerability (churn blocked)
• Jul 3, 2026: Non-archival RPCs causing scanner wedges, trading halted
• Aug 2, 2026: SOL $170K swap stranded during pause
• Aug 26, 2026: Scanner stuck weeks back (25 nodes)

TRON (Outbound Queue + Scanner)

• Feb 6, 2026: Outbound queue uncontrolled, SwapKit disabled TRON
• Jul 13, 2026: TRON unhalt — solvency/migration issues (vault gas token split)
• Jul 14, 2025: Bifrost crash loop from config miss
• Oct 1, 2025: Scanner falling behind repeatedly (bifrost bottleneck)
• Aug 19, 2026: Network-wide node lag, 20% falling out of consensus

BASE (Hardfork + Memory)

• Jun 25, 2025: Hardfork stall at L2 block 47806543
• Oct 2, 2025: Memory explosion (68G vs 24G request)
• Aug 17, 2026: Network upgrade halt (~1/3 fleet stuck)
• Aug 25-26, 2026: Daemon recovery ongoing

BSC (Outbound Queue)

• Oct 9, 2025: Funds stuck in outbound queue
• Jun 21-26, 2026: Trading halted (solvency concerns)
• Aug 22, 2026: Stuck outbounds, disabled in 3.20.0 to clear vault

GAIA (Crash Loops)

• Jun 23, 2025: Midgard interface conversion crash
• Sep 9, 2025: Nil block crash loop
• Oct 8, 2025: Chain keeps going down

BTC (LP Bug + Signing Halt)

• Nov 4, 2024: BTC signing halted (suspected Kraken compromise, ~$10M+)
• Feb 19, 2025: LP withdrawals paused (synth liability >100%)
• Aug 25, 2026: maxfeerate unit mismatch (sats vs BTC/kvB) causing outbound delays
• Aug 25, 2026: 61 outbound BTC transactions queued simultaneously

DOGE (LP Writedown + Double-Spend)

• Historical: Double-spend slash incident
• Aug 22, 2026: LP position would lose ~80% under Tranche 2 MR

BCH (P2SH + Queue Fairness)

• Jan 13, 2026: Trading paused (P2SH outbound bug)
• Oct 2, 2025: Wallet balance retrieval bug
• Dec 18, 2025: Streaming swap queue fairness (whale bots)

LTC (Reorg + MWEB)

• Apr 25, 2026: 13-block reorg attack, ~$500 loss
• Aug 7, 2026: LTC MWEB memoless swap funds stuck (permanent loss, recovery would pose security hole)

Bifrost Scanner Resource Contention (Unsolved Pattern)

The most persistent unsolved issue across the fleet:

• TRON, BSC, and SOL all cycle through falling-behind and recovering in a linked pattern
• BASE daemon using 68G vs 24G request (no limit set)
• Non-archival RPCs causing SOL scanner wedges
• v3.20.0 ships forward-only scanner floor as band-aid (one-shot only — reverts on next empty block)

Regulatory and Legal Shadow

• Feb 2025: FBI involvement re North Korean funds. Protocol maintained permissionless stance.
• May 2026: CEX accounts frozen for node operators for 1-2 months, pulled into regulatory investigations.
• May 2026: Circle blacklisting USDC risk discussion (when Monero or ZEC implemented).
• Aug 2026: Lawsuits against core devs and THORChain entity for Savers and Loans losses.
• Ongoing: Tornado Cash precedent cited; developers facing charges.

Active Node Votes

Revenue and ADR-031

ADR-031 Deep Dive: THORChain x Rujira

Nodes voted on the future relationship between THORChain and Rujira. Option 1 (joint venture) selected.

Revenue split: 33.33% THORChain, 33.33% RUJI stakers, 33.34% POL fund (50/50 owned by TC and Rujira).

WasmArbSlipMinBps set to 0: Removes minimum slip floor for Virtualization Strategy swaps.

POL Fund: DAO DAO 3-of-6 multisig. Deployed Aug 13, 2026.

Exploit responsibility: Smart contract exploits = Rujira. Base Layer exploits = THORChain. Secured Assets senior in compensation waterfall, capped at 20% of remaining POL.

Current Revenue Split

• 33.33% to THORChain
• 33.33% to RUJI stakers
• 33.34% to Rujira POL (50/50 owned by TC and Rujira)

Treasury Situation (Aug 18 report by cryptomaze)

The 5% dev fund does not cover chain operating costs. Treasury covered a $617k quarterly shortfall. Monthly costs reduced by ~$70k.

Active Debates

Burn rate: Proposals to reduce from 5% to 1% to redirect more to dev fund/POL. Gridlocked.

POL allocation: 7.5-20% of system income debated. Base-layer POL generates ~37% APR vs Rujira less than 10%.

Revenue share timing: Whether pre-ADR31 revenue should be grandfathered under old terms.

Governance Process

Node Operator Governance Philosophy

Slambammer (Jul 27): "Node operators are the network governors." Proposed slashing nodes for not voting.

Dhc (Aug 20): "In a bull market node operators get all the upside and holders get scraps."

App Layer vs Base Layer Tension

Olegpetrov (Aug 26): "Recurring incidents of app-layer updates/code degrading or halting mainnet."

Hb1001 (Aug 26): Don't think value (revenue) of Rujira currently weighs up against the lost revenue, trust and dev effort when these keep happening.

Open Source vs Security Debate (Post-Maya Exploit)

frenchy4182 (Aug 20): "Having an open source project getting hacked multiple time would eventually be a dead project imo no?"

0xminato: "AI can find vulns based on x amount of miniscule bugs, something human eyes (apparently) cant find."

aaluxxmyth: "V3.20 will make Thorchain 100% open source again."

Codehans: AI-powered audit tool (GLM5.3 + Qwen3.8) finding vulnerabilities. .pfc ran AI audit against 3.18 codebase.

App Layer vs Base Layer Tension (Aug 27-29): erudite0545: "We are using a situation caused by an issue with the Base Layer to bash Rujira and our products/contracts... the contract wasn't the issue, as was also confirmed by Itzamna and Aaluxx. The Base Layer was." 5M RUNE locked in bRUNE contracts. 3-month v3.19→v3.20 gap criticized.

Halt Documentation Request (Aug 29): sourov: "I'd like the Rujira team to document exactly what each halt does and how it affects users at the app layer." Nodes need to understand consequences of each halt type.

CosmWasm Halt Controversy (Aug 29): devel484 halted global CosmWasm. koitsu challenged: "HALTWASMGLOBAL is 0 (not halted), and HALTWASMCONTRACT-YEVLEC is 1 (halted)." erudite0545: "The amount of pushback they would get if they decided to unhalt it after you halted it... there's now enormous weight on the decision for a Node to unpause."

Churn Priority (Aug 29): Nodes need churn to get paid; some running out of cash after months without churn. cryptoactuary: "Priority one is to get Churns back - no churns, no party."

Governance Mechanism Issues

Voter Fatigue: Multiple simultaneous votes overwhelming node operators.

Non-Participation Penalties: Active discussion about churning nodes with highest slash points.

Process Documentation: MRs unilaterally closed without Approver set consensus. Concern about single-dev dependency.

Slashing System Broken (Dec 20, 2024): pluto_x1: "Tbh slashing seems completely broken." Promised overhaul for 2025.

Churn Interval Gridlock (Jan 2024): pluto_x1: "General lack of consensus on extending from 3 to 7 days." Tension between decentralization and business relationships.

Multipartite MR Conflict (May 2025): MRs "suddenly unilaterally closed." Repository membership revoked by "any single dev with a sufficiently powerful Role."

Immunefi Bounty Arbitration Dispute (Jul 2024): pluto_x1: "Immunefi team made changes to our bounty program without our knowledge... requesting a payout for something we never authorized."

Burn vs Dev Fund Debate (Jul-Aug 2026): _sonofodin: "The burn does very little for the token outside of human psychology." thorfocus: "Lowering the intrinsic value of the asset and affecting the entire system negatively."

ADR-025 Dev Fund Migration (Mar 2026): _sonofodin: "Migrate the dev fund from 9R controlled address to a multisig controlled by myself, aaluxx, and mazze."

Nine Realms Departure (Mar 2026): ronanarc: "Nine Realms will be gradually stepping back from our active roles." Infrastructure handoff to Liquify and Maya teams.

Treasury Front-Running (Jul 2026): nipseyhodl: "People are actively front running the Treasurys buys so most of the time the protocol is not spending to defend the backing."

Rujira Trust Deficit (Jul 2026): erudite0545: "Integrators not enthusiastic about RUJI due to ongoing drama, chain issues, and exploits."

Monero Launch Controversy (Aug 2026): erudite0545: "Lets YOLO Monero to Mainnet. Who cares if it is full of bugs." aaluxxmyth: "Dev team has retained Least Authority for an audit..."

koitsu Exit (Jul 2026): Long-standing community member departing TC participation except anti-scam work.

GG20 Decoy Theory (May 2026): whysideas: "Is it being considered that the hacker used the obvious GG20 exploit as a decoy to coverup for how they actually exploited the protocol?"

Mimir Reference

Emergency Halts

Security Parameters

Economic / Revenue

Governance Votes

Chain-Specific