THORChain rejected Bitget CEO Gracy Chen’s request to block addresses associated with funds stolen in Bitget’s September 24 security breach. The loss was initially estimated at $351.6 million before investigators identified additional unauthorized transfers across Ethereum, XRP Ledger, Zcash and TRON, bringing the revised total to roughly $387.5 million. Chen submitted the request on September 26, but THORChain declined it the same day, citing the permissionless design of its cross-chain protocol (system enabling swaps between blockchains). Chen challenged that rationale by pointing to THORChain’s own response to a May 2026 exploit, when attackers drained approximately $10.7 million from its vaults and the protocol halted operations for roughly 39 days while the team addressed the vulnerability and recovered. Stolen funds continued moving through THORChain, including a tracked swap of approximately $6.3 million in ETH for around 75.2 BTC. Chen has linked the breach to patterns associated with North Korean cyber operations, although law enforcement investigations have not confirmed the attribution. THORChain’s RUNE token rose in the days after the incident, while controversy and the volume of stolen assets swapped through the protocol appeared to increase market activity. The episode is likely to add to global regulatory scrutiny of cross-chain protocols and their role in illicit fund flows. The earlier Bybit hack had also drawn attention to THORChain as a venue for swapping stolen assets. Chen’s criticism gives regulators another example in debates over accountability in DeFi (decentralized finance). If protocols can selectively intervene, it becomes harder for them to argue that they are purely neutral infrastructure outside compliance obligations.