"THORChain in Crisis: Core Developer Exits Amid North Korean Hacker Controversy"

THORChain, a decentralized cross-chain liquidity protocol, has been facing a significant challenge following a failed vote to block transactions linked to a North Korean hacker group. The controversy has led to the departure of a core developer, Pluto, and threats from validators to exit the protocol if the issue is not addressed.

Pluto announced his departure in a recent post, stating that he will no longer be contributing to THORChain but will remain available to Nine Realms as needed to ensure a smooth handover of responsibilities. Although he did not specify the reason for his departure, validator TCB quoted his post and threatened to exit the protocol if the THORChain team fails to rapidly adopt a solution to stop the flow of funds from the North Korean hacking group Lazarus Group.

Earlier, TCB had voted to stop Ethereum (ETH) trading on the protocol to prevent the flow of funds from the Lazarus Group. However, the vote was reverted within minutes, according to THORChain developer Oleg Petrov. Just a few days prior, Pluto had informed followers that the team was actively working towards implementing screening services to stop the flow of illicit funds through the protocol.

According to data on LookOnChain, the Bybit hacker has been using THORChain to process stolen funds from one of the largest hacks in the crypto space. A post published on Feb. 28 indicated that the Bybit hacker has laundered a total of 270,000 ETH ($605 million) or equal to 54% of the stolen funds through the cross-chain swap protocol. The flow of stolen funds from Bybit through the protocol boosted its trading volume to $2.91 billion and generated $3 million in fee revenue in just five days. At press time, the protocol’s daily trading volume has reached $650 million, when the average daily trading volume used to be $80 million before the Bybit hack.

THORChain founder John-Paul Thorbjornsen responded to the controversy regarding the reverted vote and the departure of developers. He stated that he had recommended nodes to continue trading and claimed that none of the hacker addresses listed by the Office of Foreign Assets Control and FBI have ever interacted with THORChain. He also said that he will support his nodes to run a static deny list on OFAC/FBI lists if they feel comfortable but will not support a non