RUNE

THORChain network halted following software bug

The team stated that the next steps were to find the source of the non-determinism, release an update, and restart the state machine, but there have been no updates since.

Cross-chain exchange and proof-of-bond network THORChain was halted earlier today as the result of a bug causing “non-determinism between individual nodes.”

At around 8:00 pm UTC, the THORChain team initially tweeted that developers were aware of a chain outage and were working to find the root cause of the issue.

Roughly four hours later, the team posted a further update noting that “consensus halts in a distributed state machine are from sources of non-determinism between individual nodes and prevent the ledger from becoming corrupted.”

It stated that the next steps were to find the source of the non-determinism, release an update and restart the state machine, and while noting that step one was close, there have been no updates since, suggesting the developers are dealing with a fair bit of a headache.

Consensus halts in a distributed state machine are from sources of non-determinism between individual nodes and prevent the ledger from becoming corrupted.

Next steps:
1) Find source of non-determinism
2) Release update
3) Restart state machine

(1) is close https://t.co/sS4EMbYcOQ

— THORChain (@THORChain) October 27, 2022

According to THORChain explorer, the network still appears to be halted at the time of writing. However, token swapping platform THORSwap provided an update of its own, noting that its platform is still operating.

“Update on the current halt of THORChain Swaps/LP. Funds are safe. Ethereum and ERC-20 swaps are fully functioning on ThorSwap via DEX Aggregator. Hang tight, THORChain devs are on the case!” it wrote.

THORChain infrastructure developers Nine Realms were unfazed by the incident, as it suggested that ironing out bugs is just part of the process of improving the THORChain network .

“Each halt is investigated immediately by a security team and core devs—resulting in protocol improvements. As the network matures: halt early, halt often,” it stated.

Cointelegraph has reached out to THORChain for comment and will update the story if a response is received.

THORChain isn’t the only one to suffer network issues this week, as Meta-owned messaging platform WhatsApp went offline to its 2 billion users for around 2 hours on Oct. 25. Whatsapp attributed the problem to a technical error, but didn’t go into any further detail.

THORChain’s native token RUNE is down 1.4% over the past 24 hours to sit at $1.53 but is still up 6.5% in the past seven days. Zooming out, the asset is down a hefty 92.7% since its all-time high of $20.87 on May 19, 2021, according to CoinGecko.

RUNE pumps 18% as THORChain deactivates non-native tokens

The variants based on BEP-2 and ERC-20 are being swapped out for the upgraded native RUNE token after THORChain’s long-awaited mainnet late last month.

Cross-chain exchange and proof-of-bond network THORChain has finally activated the killswitch that will progressively wind down support of the BEP-2- and ERC-20-based variants of the RUNE token.

BNB.RUNE and ETH.RUNE, also known as IOU Tokens, are being swapped out for the upgraded and completely native RUNE token after THORChain’s long-awaited mainnet late last month.

Moving forward, these tokens will progressively lose their value over the next 12 months, as the project aims to foster the adoption of its fully unified variant of RUNE, enabling stronger asset interoperability.

Users who hold their IOU Tokens on centralized changes will have their tokens automatically upgraded to the new native RUNE. Those who keep their tokens in private wallets must create a new wallet supported by THORChain and then click an upgrade button to make the switch.

The THORChain team stated via Twitter on Monday that killswitch will go live at block 6,500,000 and that 1:1 exchange rates will “linearly tick down to 1:0 over the next 12 months” as the IOU Tokens become worthless.

Today, the BEP-2 and ERC-20 $RUNE killswitch will be activated at block 6500000. Upgrades will no longer be 1:1. Exchange rates will linearly tick down to 1:0 over the next 12 months.

If you hold $RUNE in a self-custody wallet, ensure your wallet address begins with `thor1…`

— THORChain (@THORChain) July 18, 2022

The team previously stated in a blog post earlier this year that this move was part of a push toward further decentralization of its network, as it highlighted issues with having IOU RUNE spread across two separate networks:

“THORChain is extremely strict in having no 3rd party dependencies, preferring to manage everything in-house. There are no oracles, no off-shored security, and no reliance on external liquidity.”

“However, BNB.RUNE and ETH.RUNE has privileged access to the state machine’s ’mint’ function. Anyone presenting these tokens can mint fresh RUNE, as well as making THORChain’s state dependent on these two networks,” the blog post read.

The move from THORChain has coincided with a significant 18.6% bounce of RUNE prices to $2.61 over the past 24 hours. Measuring over a broader time frame also shows promising signs, with RUNE gaining 65.9% over the past 30 days, according to data from CoinGecko. However, RUNE is still down 87.5% since its all-time high of $20.87 on May 19 last year.

Apart from enabling users to swap assets by liquidity pools across various networks such as Binance Smart Chain, Ethereum, Dogecoin and Bitcoin, THORChain also supports the trading of synthetic assets, which are tokenized derivatives that mimic the value of other assets such as stocks and commodities.

Under the recently launched mainnet, the project aims to provide enhanced security measures and network stability, greater decentralization, a new governance process, establish new chain integrations, wallet integrations, aggregator implementations and roll out a single-sided yield feature.