THORChain has launched its Zcash (ZEC) liquidity pool on Oct. 2 after the network completed a node churn, with all nodes now monitoring Zcash and trading set as the next step.
Summary
- THORChain has launched its ZEC liquidity pool after completing a network churn across active nodes.
- Every THORChain node is now monitoring Zcash while native ZEC trading remains the next step.
- THORChain warned liquidity remains shallow and urged traders to use caution during early ZEC trading.
- THORChain added Zcash UTXO handling, RPC logic and ZEC oracle support through 2026 protocol upgrades.
- Bitget-linked wallets swapped roughly $6.3 million in ETH for Bitcoin through THORChain after September’s breach.
THORChain said the churn had completed and every node was watching the Zcash chain, while trading would follow after the pool launch. The protocol described the venue as permissionless and cautioned users that liquidity remained shallow during the opening stage.
THORChain ZEC pool is live before native trading
The new ZEC pool gives THORChain’s network a live liquidity venue for Zcash before swaps are switched on. In its Oct. 2 announcement, THORChain said, “Trading is the next step,” separating the pool activation from the start of user trading.
Liquidity is still limited. THORChain warned, “Liquidity is shallow for now and will grow over time, so trade with caution in the early days.” The Oct. 2 post gave no pool-depth figure or firm trading start time.
An active-node page on THORChain’s network explorer currently lists ZEC as “OK” under chain information, alongside Bitcoin, Ethereum and several other networks tracked by the displayed node.
Zcash support followed months of THORChain code work
THORChain said in its March 4 protocol upgrade that the Zcash integration added chain-specific UTXO handling and RPC logic. A separate change placed ZEC in the protocol’s enshrined oracle, providing native price tracking within THORChain’s protocol logic.
A March GitLab change later corrected ZEC network-fee reporting and solvency calculations. Developers said the previous implementation could inflate gas tolerance because the full ZIP-317 fee was being treated like a per-byte rate during one solvency calculation. The merged fix changed how the transaction-size input was handled for ZEC.
Development continued into September. A THORNode merge request documented signing inconsistencies caused when ZEC transaction expiry was calculated from different local chain tips, producing different signing digests between nodes.
The merged change tied transaction expiry to an agreed ZEC height at a fixed THORChain height and preserved the value during retries and restarts. It introduced periodic updates to the agreed ZEC height through network-fee reports and changed the handling of expired signing attempts.
On Sept. 17, THORChain’s official blog said Zcash was next in line for mainnet as chain launches resumed after a period focused on network stability. The project kept the timing conditional at the time, before nodes began monitoring Zcash and the liquidity pool went live.
Early ZEC trading will begin with shallow liquidity
THORChain’s Oct. 2 warning focused directly on the liquidity available during the opening stage. The protocol told users to exercise caution while the pool remained shallow, with trading still awaiting its next activation step.
THORChain’s documentation describes its exchange model as a collection of continuous liquidity pools that handle native assets without requiring wrapped versions. RUNE serves as the network’s settlement asset and sits in its liquidity pools, providing the routing asset for swaps between supported chains.
Zcash support required several settings tied to its UTXO design. An earlier THORNode change classified ZEC as a UTXO-based chain and added configurations for address validation, gas units, dust thresholds, block timing, coinbase parameters and inbound transaction requirements.
Further work continued shortly before the launch. The September signing fix required nodes to use an agreed ZEC height for transaction expiry, while retries were required to retain the same unsigned transaction information instead of recalculating expiry from a newer local tip.
Hack-linked swaps remain part of THORChain debate
The ZEC launch follows renewed scrutiny of THORChain over stolen assets moving through cross-chain swaps. Bitget said unauthorized transfers began on Sept. 24 and later raised the value transferred to attacker-controlled addresses to approximately $387.5 million after investigators included Zcash and Tron activity in the total.
Bitget said Mandiant and SlowMist were working with its security and technical teams during the investigation. Its disclosure listed affected assets including XRP, ETH, USDT, ZEC, USDC, XAUt, BNB, AVAX and TRX and published primary attacker-controlled receiving addresses across several networks.
As crypto.news reported on Sept. 28, a wallet linked to the Bitget attacker completed 27 swaps through THORChain, converting around 2,390 ETH into 75.2 BTC valued at roughly $6.3 million at the time. Bitget had asked THORChain to refuse transactions from addresses linked to the attacker.
THORChain rejected the requested selective restriction. The protocol said its emergency halt mechanisms were intended to protect network operations and did not provide a way to freeze an individual address or swap.
An Oct. 1 THORChain blog post set out the network’s position in more detail. The project said node operators can pause a chain or the entire protocol when solvency is at risk, while the same emergency system cannot selectively remove an individual transaction. It said major protocol decisions require node-operator adoption and described a two-thirds consensus threshold for major network changes.
The dispute follows an earlier case involving the February 2025 Bybit hack. The FBI attributed the theft of approximately $1.5 billion in virtual assets to North Korea’s TraderTraitor activity and urged exchanges, bridges, RPC operators, DeFi services and other crypto firms to block transactions connected with identified attacker addresses.
As crypto.news previously reported, Bybit CEO Ben Zhou said 72% of roughly $900 million in converted assets had passed through THORChain. The figure was attributed to Zhou and was not a THORChain estimate.
A separate crypto.news report on THORChain activity said the protocol recorded $2.91 billion in trading volume and roughly $3 million in fee income during the early laundering period, citing on-chain analyst Yu Jin.
Bitget’s current recovery page lists attacker addresses across EVM networks, XRP Ledger, Zcash and Tron and offers a 5% bounty to eligible parties whose voluntary work directly results in funds being frozen or recovered.
