Thorchain is Insolvent: Bank Run Activated

The feelz are high!

Last night I, @khaleelkazi, and @scaredycatguide watched in HORROR as RUNE collapsed in record time, flash-crashing from a $3 support down to $2 in a massive leverage flush. This was due to the network freezing accounts and losing a lot of credibility.

Some of my readers may recall that I wrote two or three posts a while back on this topic of "risk free" lending on Thorchain. Less than a year later the entire system has blown up... in the middle of a perceived bull market no less. I personally have 0.25 Bitcoin locked in the quagmire that I may or may not get back (fully dependent on RUNE price going up).

So what happened here?

The Thorchain community acted like they could short Bitcoin and Ethereum and use all that money to pump their own token on leverage. Then they all high-fived each-other a year ago and called it risk-free. I knew the risks. I knew what I signed up for, but a lot of other people did not and have been completely blindsided by this bail-in. Disappointing to say the least. Maybe there was some light crime involved here with the false advertising. After all they did make the claim that the only threat was the circuit breaker... which was never actually triggered; they just decided to do a manual freeze before that happened and in doing so caused a lot of this bank-run panic.

What is a bail-in?

Well a bailout is when money gets printed out of thin air to stop an institution from systemically collapsing. A bail-in locks all current debtors inside the system and doesn't allow them to escape with their money. That's exactly what's happening right now with my quarter Bitcoin on Thorchain. Their community is holding it hostage, and an alarming number of community members are trying to spin it like it's not really that big of a deal. It's a big deal. Pretending bank insolvency is fine is delusional.

Permanent loss of reputation

Even if everyone gets paid back, this is a permanent stain on their record. It's true that now could be the best time to buy Rune that we're ever going to get because the market could have easily over-exaggerated the price action to the downside... but also this is such a bad situation it would be very hard to justify entering a position within this toxic sludge landscape where the network is now saddled with debt it's already admitted it can't pay back. In fact they might be so saddled with debt that there's no telling if number will go up with the rest of the market due to all this downward pressure. That's probably just the FUD talking but you never know.

https://x.com/RealRossU/status/1882609887878029519

Silver lining?

I saw this video from Ross Ulbricht saying he's taking some time to reconnect with his family and whatnot, but he still has the vibe of a highly political revolutionary at heart. Love to see it. Curious as to how this situation evolves now that he's one of the biggest libertarian celebrities out there now, and a pretty big crypto celebrity as well. Kraken exchange alone has already donated over a hundred thousand dollars to him, which I find to be a pretty crazy outcome.

Conclusion

If Hive has done one thing right it has been the issuance of debt without getting buried by it. Take a moment to reflect on how awesome HBD has performed over the last cycle. We made it a full cycle, and more importantly through a bear market. The geniuses over on Thorchain didn't make it a single year. Pathetic really.

I'm shocked that this boondoggle of a lending system didn't even make it into the beginning of a bear market. That's honestly mindblowing; that's how bad of an idea it was from a technical perspective, and none of these degenerates listened to reason when it launched. Just remember that in crypto if someone tells you a thing is "risk free" they are completely full of shit.