Furious debate about THORChain vs NEAR shows idealism has limits

After Bitget got hacked on Sept. 24, $387.5 million of stolen funds quickly began moving across chains, with some headed to decentralized cross chain swaps platform THORChain.

Chief executive Gracy Chen publicly appealed to the platform to refuse service to attacker-linked addresses. “The industry is watching,” she said.

Yet THORChain refused. And that refusal has kicked off a furious debate between those who believe protocols have a moral obligation to block stolen funds, and those hold the cypherpunk ideals of decentralized, permissionless technology sacrosanct.

Having previously watched on as the Bybit hackers funneled $1.2 billion through the protocol, it’s pretty clear which side of the argument THORChain is on. Developer Boone Wheeler tells Magazine:

“A truly permissionless protocol can do nothing when it encounters known stolen funds — it is blind to their provenance. If THORChain were able to block specific stolen funds, it would not be permissionless.”

Where does permissionlessness end?

Critics argue that THORChain wasn’t quite so idealistic when validators voted to halt the chain in May after an automated system triggered when an attacker exploited a vulnerability and drained over $10 million from one of its vaults.