THORChain fees rebound but remain far below September surge

THORChain’s gross swap fees are climbing again. They are also still 84% below where they stood in September.

That gap matters because September was not a normal month. Much of its activity came from funds tied to the Bitget exploit, and THORChain now has to show what its business looks like without that windfall.

The numbers behind the spike and the slide

September’s system income reached $3.01 million. In August, it was $615,000.

Swap volume followed the same path. It hit $2.40 billion in September, up from $613 million the month before.

Most of that jump happened in five days. Between September 25 and 29, flows connected to the Bitget exploit drove the activity.

Those exploit-related flows accounted for approximately 57-63% of September’s volume and income. That works out to around $1.37 billion in swap volume and roughly $1.9 million in income during the five-day window.

As of mid-October, gross swap fees have fallen to 84% below September levels.

Fees are recovering modestly, and they are hovering somewhere in the mid-to-high six figures. DefiLlama puts recent 30-day fees at approximately $635K.

That figure sits close to August’s $615,000 in system income. The comparison is loose, since the two metrics differ, but it points to the same story: once the exploit flows disappear, THORChain looks a lot like its pre-surge self.

No significant spikes or exploits were reported in October.

How THORChain fits into this

THORChain is a decentralized liquidity protocol built for swapping assets across different blockchains. A user can move value from one chain to another without routing through a centralized exchange.

A permissionless cross-chain swap venue works for everyone, including people moving the proceeds of an exploit. The protocol earns fees on that volume, which creates an uncomfortable dynamic. One of its best months recently was powered in large part by someone else’s bad week.

Not everything in September came down to the exploit. Ecosystem participation also grew during the month.

Active wallets rose to 25,000. The validator set expanded to 103 nodes.

Protocol-Owned Liquidity, or POL, had collected nearly 946,000 RUNE in deposits by September. POL is liquidity the protocol holds itself rather than borrowing it from outside providers. RUNE is THORChain’s native token.

A new way to split the revenue

THORChain has also changed how it distributes system income. The revised split works like this:

• 59% to nodes
• 20% to Protocol-Owned Liquidity
• 10% to TCY
• 5% to the Developer Fund
• 5% to the Marketing Fund
• 1% to RUNE burn

The RUNE burn share drops from 5% to 1%. The new model shifts that money toward other priorities, with the biggest change being the 20% now going to POL.

What this means

For anyone tracking THORChain as a business, the key task is separating signal from noise. September’s $3.01 million in system income makes for a great headline. However, approximately 57-63% of that month’s volume and income came from a single, nonrecurring event.

Strip that out, and the more useful benchmark is the roughly $635K in 30-day fees reported by DefiLlama.

Steering 20% of income into POL could give THORChain deeper liquidity it controls directly. The trade-off is the smaller burn, with the RUNE burn share falling from 5% to 1%.

The figures to watch are clear enough. Track whether monthly fees can climb meaningfully above the roughly $635K range without another one-off event. Watch whether active wallets hold near 25,000 now that the surge is over. Keep an eye on how quickly POL grows beyond its nearly 946,000 RUNE.