THORChain after the #Bitget hack: what does it mean for $RUNE ? THORChain is back in the spotlight for an uncomfortable reason. Onchain researchers traced stolen Bitget assets through the cross-chain network. By September 28, Bitquery reported that 93.22 million stolen XRP had been swapped into BTC via #ThorChain . That does not mean THORChain was hacked in the Bitget incident. It shows why its permissionless swaps are valuable to ordinary users and why the same access creates a difficult question when stolen funds arrive. The investment case for $RUNE rests on actual network use: RUNE sits in liquidity pools, secures nodes and is central to swaps. But higher transaction volume does not automatically translate into a higher token price. THORChain recently directed 20% of system income to protocol-owned liquidity while reducing the RUNE burn allocation from 5% to 1%. There are risks to weigh alongside that utility. The network has its own security history, including a May 2026 exploit, and the THORFi debt restructuring remains part of its story. What I’m watching: sustained swap fees after the current attention fades, growth in useful liquidity, and how the network handles pressure over illicit flows. For $RUNE , those measures will say more than a short-lived spike in volume.