Between April and June, the marketing team continued to strengthen THORChain’s visibility, content distribution, and overall positioning across multiple channels. The period was impacted by the May security incident and subsequent network halt, which temporarily shifted communications toward essential updates and recovery.
Despite this disruption, several structural initiatives moved forward, including the blog migration, launch of the new website, launch of the weekly newsletter, new content formats and contributors, closer collaboration with DeFiLlama, the onboarding of MarketAcross, and continued investment in public relations (PR).
This report presents the main achievements and key data points by category, along with a breakdown of marketing spend.
Website
The new website launched on May 19. This is where the majority of focus was placed during the first several months of the year.
June was the first full month of post-launch iteration. The work shifted from getting the site live to improving the details: technical cleanup, SEO titles and descriptions, structured data, fixing blog URLs, recovery communications, and distribution.
Website quality control continued after launch, including mobile styling, blog tags, and visual refinements across key pages. 404 errors, technical SEO issues from backend changes, and broken links after migrating the blog from Medium and Ghost. These are being worked on as it’s largely a manual process.
STO (swap.thorchain.org) continues to evolve with feedback from the community and learning from help desk tickets. The dashboard for affiliate partners started taking shape. This dashboard will be used by the business development team (Chad, Randy, Kenton) to onboard new partners wanting to use THORChain’s free API. The partner can create an account to request an API key, then it’s reviewed by Randy or Kenton to be approved. This dashboard gives the partner a place to easily manage their affiliate fee payout using their THORName and MAYAName, along with a history of all the fees they’ve collected. It’s important to note that a partner can still integrate THORChain permissionlessly, without an API. The API just makes it easier for them.
In May, we created an issues page on GitHub for STO to stay better organized with all the bug fixes and features being added. For the 6 weeks the page was in use, 58 issues were created and 18 closed during the quarter.
Branding
The TCY logo was changed to the lightning bolt to convey to investors TCY is the same brand as THORChain. The bifrost blue color from the brand book is used for the circle to help differentiate the TCY logo from the RUNE logo.
SEO
The website SEO titles and descriptions were actively reviewed and debated. High-intent phrases such as “Bitcoin DEX,” “No KYC,” “Swap BTC,” “Swap Crypto,” and “Monero,” were incorporated to try and get in front of new audiences.
All the URLs needed improvement after the launch of the website according to Core Web Vitals. The fixes went into effect in June and now there are zero poor/need improvement URLs. All the URLs on desktop and mobile are considered good.
The vast majority of traffic comes from people searching “THORChain” or some derivative of it. We’re starting to see “swap crypto” bring traffic to the site and will continue to work on getting non-THORChain terms to rank.
On the AI discoverability front, work started in May following the launch of the new website and appears to have contributed to an increase in impressions. Impressions measure how many times links to thorchain.org were shown to users through generative AI features in Google Search.
THORChain Blog
In Q4 2025 and Q1 2026, the team worked with the authors of the various Medium blogs to migrate all their articles into one central blog on Ghost. The canonical links on all the Medium articles where changed to the blog.thorchain.org URL to give the THORChain website SEO value for the articles instead of Medium. With the launch of the new website, the blog was migrated from Ghost to the new Sanity backend to further improve SEO and enable us to own our data. Ghost is a third party, blog-as-a-service, site and could turn us off at will.
Blog URL structure was cleaned up, including work to remove the extra /blog/ path from individual post URLs and ensure redirects behaved as intended.
Several new blog contributors were added, including Ray (Raynalytics) and the Rujira team. The blog is an open forum for any community member to contribute to instead of using a personal Medium page. If you have an article you would like published, please reach out to Kenton.
In June, a design revamp was launched to create more consistent and professional thumbnails aligned with THORChain’s new branding.
Due to the security incident, the slowdown in development, and delays affecting several integrations and upgrades, a number of articles are ready but have not yet been published. These include pieces on churn and bonding, Monero integration, Zcash integration, and v3.20. This is reflected in the lower publishing activity in June.
- April: 15 articles
- May: 14 articles
- June: 10 articles
Podcasts
The team continued to host podcasts on a regular basis. The migration to Riverside now allows the team to broadcast across multiple platforms, including X, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. The recordings can be repurposed into articles for the blog and short-form content across the social channels mentioned, as well as Instagram and TikTok.
- Protocol Update on Thursdays: 18 Podcasts
- Ecosystem Spotlight on Saturdays: 17 podcasts
Research Platforms and Public Relations
Several initiatives were undertaken during the quarter to increase THORChain’s visibility and establish a clearer narrative about the protocol and what it offers:
- Starting in April, the team began working with DeFiLlama to improve THORChain’s data and build an Institutional Investment Dashboard, ahead of a series of spotlights and sponsorship campaigns in their newsletter. The goal is to establish THORChain as a successful and important blockchain in DeFi, and drive traffic to the STO swap interface.
- In May, immediately after the exploit, MarketAcross was hired to support communications, leading to several articles being published across major news outlets. MarketAcross advised keeping a low profile and not drawing attention to ourselves which would inevitably put a spotlight on the exploit, and let the story fade in the news cycle. Therefore, posting on social media and publishing blog posts and articles was put on hold while trading was halted. MarketAcross helped with correcting articles on Coin Telegraph that had erroneous information about THORChain.
- Token Terminal was explored for integrating THORChain data into their platform and creating a dashboard. We like what they have to offer, such as integrations in CoinGecko, CoinMarketCap, and Claude, and intend to make this the next research platform integration when the budget allows it.
- Near the end of the quarter, Blockworks acquired Messari. We were already in touch with Blockworks in the past to get THORChain data integrated and a dashboard created, however the cost was too high at the time. Since we already have a dashboard and data integration with Messari, Blockworks was keen to migrate THORChain data and dashboard into their site to continue the relationship.
- AntiKYC listing work was opened, adding another discovery channel aligned with THORChain’s no-KYC positioning.
- In June, the first edition of the weekly email newsletter was launched shortly after the network resumed. Over the years, various members of the community have asked for an easy way to stay up to date with THORChain and this newsletter aims to do that.
- Throughout the period, the team continued building a pipeline of PR articles for future distribution. As of today, 26 articles are ready to be published across third party websites. These will also help with SEO/AEO.
Social Media
X
Activity on Twitter followed an upward trend from April until May 15, the date of the security incident. This momentum was mainly driven the growing privacy narrative and the upcoming Monero integration which the team was capitalizing on. The momentum ended with the hack.
During the chain halt period, which lasted approximately five weeks from mid-May, activity across social channels was reduced to a strict minimum, with only essential updates being shared. This was a deliberate choice to avoid potential backlash and keep the focus entirely on the network’s recovery.
In June, activity on Twitter returned to normal, but momentum had to be rebuilt. As we entered the holiday season and major developments faced delays, rebuilding that momentum is taking some time.
On LinkedIn, the strategy remained similar to X, with fewer posts and a stronger focus on institutional and educational content. During the security incident, activity was significantly reduced, with the account primarily used to share essential updates.
Overall, impressions remained above 15k in April and May before dropping significantly to 4.5k in June. The strategy itself didn’t materially change, aside from the slowdown in the privacy narrative and the lack of concrete development mentioned above.
- April: 16,185 impressions, 128 reactions, 14 comments and +21 followers
- May: 17,763 impressions, 119 reactions and 15 comments and +31 followers
- June: 4,466 impressions, 63 reactions and 6 comments and +14 followers
In April, a major shift took place on Reddit, with content moving from the r/THORChainOfficial subreddit to r/THORChain.
As a reminder, the former had originally been created because the team was unable to post directly in the r/THORChain community-led subreddit. Regaining the ability to post there allows the team to reach the existing audience directly and strengthen THORChain’s presence where the community is already active.
Over the three-month period, activity remained relatively stable, with a surge in visitors around the security incident. The number of followers also remained stable at approximately 13.2k.
The primary objective on Reddit remains the same: repurpose relevant content from other platforms to keep the Reddit community informed, while also strengthening THORChain’s visibility in a platform frequently cited by AI.
- April: 3,400 visitors.
- May: 4,600 visitors.
- June: 3,200 visitors.
- Engagement rate above 20% for most content published by the team
YouTube
YouTube activity remained consistent over the period, averaging around 1,060 hours watched and 7,600 viewers per month.
We expect these numbers to increase as links to the Podcasts and Shorts are now shared directly across social platforms.
On Instagram, podcast shorts are being distributed as this format performs better than static posts.
Still, over the period, we observed a 26% decline in views and a 30% decline in reach. Instagram performance tends to be highly sensitive to broader market conditions, and the prolonged bearish environment may explain this decline. Numbers should recover as market sentiment improves and the goal is to maintain consistency in posting.
TikTok
On TikTok, podcast shorts are also the main format being distributed, as the platform is adapted to video clips.
Over the period, we observed a significant increase in performance, with views reaching 23K, up 92%. Engagement also increased by 70%, with 504 likes, while profile views rose by 5%.
On Facebook, podcast shorts are posted alongside other key content, including blog articles. As with most social platforms, video content generates the strongest impressions and has been performing particularly well.
Despite fewer interactions, watch time increased significantly by 135% to 16h26, while total views reached 11.3K, representing a 290% increase. This improvement can be attributed to the podcast now being livestreamed to Facebook.
Founder’s Voice (Chad Barraford)
We continued posting regularly on Chad’s LinkedIn, based on interviews, at a pace of around two posts per week. During the security incident, posting was paused as Chad’s focus shifted entirely to restoring the network. The objective of this channel remains the same: building visibility and authority for Chad Barraford as the main thought leader for THORChain.
Notable conversation topics included AI and Bitcoin, as well as, somewhat surprisingly, technical and development challenges.
The best-performing posts during the period were:
- A post on Michael Saylor selling BTC, generating 32 comments and 21 likes
- A post on the use of AI, generating 17 comments and 20 likes
Marketing Expenditure Breakdown
The Website/Rebrand costs were one time and General Admin, SEO, and Social Media costs are fixed. The Research and Public Relations expenditures will go up as revenue to the Marketing Fund increases, which means their percentages will increase as the others see their percentages decrease.
The next major expenditure is expected to be on KOLs. We’re acutely aware of the negative perception of KOLs and the cost vs reward, therefore we’ll be careful using them.
The network halt along with the one time cost of hiring MarketAcross ($58k) put a dent in the working capital of the budget. Our goal is to maintain at least 3 months of working capital to cover monthly expenses in case of another network halt, drop in RUNE price, drop in volume, or an unforeseen expense.
We don’t want to take on any new monthly expenses or large one time purchases until Monero starts trading and we see where the volume settles out.
We accumulate RUNE and look to sell when the chart is overbought.
Balances as of June 30, 2026
- RUNE: 99k ($38k)
- USDC & USD: $133k
What’s Coming in Q3
We’ll continue iterating the website based on community feedback, on-site analytics, and what we’re learning from traffic and search data. The SEO process will continue to mature with a greater emphasis on AEO, to ensure THORChain is recognized by AI and starts showing up in AI prompt results.
Social media efforts will return to a normal cadence as trading resumes. The MarketAcross partnership will run its course during this quarter culminating with promoting the soft launch of Monero on THORChain. Then resources will go towards doing public relations in house and distributing the inventory of articles we already have.
KOLs will be reviewed to help promote the launch of Monero.
Visibility work will continue evaluating new dashboards and listings on various data platforms.
STO (swap.thorchain.org) will have new wallets supported and the affiliate page will be ironed out with new features added such as html code to add a swap widget to a website.
Thank you
This work has been a team effort across many THORChain contributors, partners, and community members. The goal is not short-term hype, it’s building long-term trust and compounding visibility.
