# THORChain Says Its Emergency Halt Applies Across the Network

By Simon Yoon

Canonical URL: https://www.tokenpost.com/news/technology/26123
Published: 2026-10-01T09:35:42.000Z
Updated: 2026-10-01T09:35:42.000Z
Section: Technology

> Co-founder Chad Barraford said Bitget CEO Gracy Chen asked the protocol to restrict addresses she linked to the exchange’s September hack.

THORChain co-founder Chad Barraford said the protocol cannot block transactions from a single wallet, after Bitget CEO Gracy Chen asked it to restrict addresses she linked to the exchange’s September hack.

Barraford described THORChain’s emergency halt as a network-wide circuit breaker. “It stops everyone at once,” he said. Selective blocking, he argued, would give network operators power to decide whose transactions can proceed. “So when we say we can’t selectively block an address, we mean can’t, not won’t.”

Bitget said attackers took about $387.5 million in digital assets on Sept. 24. The exchange initially estimated the loss at $351.6 million before revising the figure. No final public finding has identified the suspected attackers.

Barraford acknowledged that open access means the network can be used by people its operators would prefer to exclude. He argued that this cost is preferable to creating censorship powers that could be misused.

He said recovery efforts may have more room to act where digital assets meet traditional finance, including exchanges and fiat off-ramps where users may need to identify themselves. Public transaction records can help investigators trace and label funds, he said. Closing swap routes, in his view, could make tracing harder without stopping theft.

The dispute echoes the aftermath of the 2025 Bybit hack. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) urged crypto services to block transactions linked to North Korean actors and the FBI attributed about $1.5 billion in virtual-asset theft to North Korea.