- OKX CEO Star Xu heavily criticized THORChain’s decentralization claims, arguing its model fails to meet the standard of true decentralization.
- The cross-chain liquidity protocol faced public backlash after its core team declined to block transactions tied to the $387.5 million Bitget exploit.
THORChain (RUNE) is under scrutiny from the crypto community after its core developers refused to comply with requests to reject transactions linked to the recent $387.5 million Bitget hack. The team maintained that intervening would violate the network’s decentralized and permissionless principles. Critics, however, contend that these principles should not serve as shields for illicit activity or enable bad actors to evade accountability.
Over the weekend, OKX CEO Star Xu questioned whether THORChain genuinely adheres to a decentralized model. His remarks followed the core team’s refusal to honor Bitget CEO Gracy Chen’s request to deny service to addresses associated with the exchange’s hacking incident last Thursday.
OKX CEO Star Xu Criticizes THORChain’s Decentralization Claim
THORChain compared its architecture to Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), which lack central authority and protocol-level censorship mechanisms, to justify its stance. Xu countered that the network’s Threshold Signature Scheme (TSS) and validator model do not constitute “true decentralization.”
Xu explained that THORChain’s selected validator set collectively controls the underlying assets held in TSS vaults. Validators can only move funds once the chain reaches its signing threshold.
Furthermore, the OKX CEO argued that this structure fundamentally differentiates THORChain from the base-layer consensus models of Bitcoin and Ethereum from a custody perspective. He emphasized that THORChain functions as an intermediary between users and native chains.
“TSS distributes control among multiple parties, but distributing an intermediary does not eliminate the intermediary,” Xu stated.
Community Feedback on the Latest THORChain Issue
Many observers supported Xu’s assessment. Pseudonymous Chinese crypto researcher BITWU.ETH elaborated that merely distributing the middleman does not remove the middleman’s existence. He argued that THORChain should not hide behind the veneer of decentralization to avoid responsibility for returning stolen funds.
Conversely, an official from Dashpay—a decentralized social payment application utilizing THORChain for cross-chain swaps—insisted the protocol is not centralized and lacks censorship tools. The representative told Xu to “stop coping because your failed centralized model can’t protect users.”
Xu responded by noting that THORChain itself froze network operations for 13 hours during an exploit in May.
“A network that can stop when its own funds are at risk, but refuses to do so when someone else’s funds are at risk, is not ‘like Bitcoin,'” Xu added. “Bitcoin cannot be stopped. THORChain can—it simply chooses when to do so.”
