State of the Network - August 2026

August was a quieter month for THORChain on headline volume, but activity underneath continued to be solid:

• Swap volume fell 23% to $613M
• Active wallets rose 57% and new wallets climbed to 21.8K.
• Rapid swaps increased in numbers despite a sharp decline in average trade size, pointing to more frequent, smaller transactions across the network.
• Protocol Owned Liquidity was launched, giving system income a new role in building protocol-owned positions.
• Dynamic fees continued to price below the standard fixed rate
• RUNE retained a clear yield advantage over TCY.
• Affiliates routed $254M through THORChain in August, led by swap.thorchain.org, followed by SwapKit and TrustWallet at $44.7M.

Volume and Fees

General volume

August closed at $613M in total swap volume, down 23% from July’s $796.97M. The main difference with July was the absence of a large outlier: while volume was boosted by a single $75M day on July 25, August had no comparable spike.

Daily volume started the month in a $12M to $33M range during the first week, before building steadily into mid-month. Activity peaked around August 20-21, with daily volume reaching around $40M, the highest level of the month. The main disruption came on August 26-27, when volume fell to around $5M after the network halted due to a node execution mismatch. This marked the month’s low, but activity recovered quickly, with volume returning to the $30M-$34M range over the final two days.

Overall, August was weaker than July in aggregate, but also more evenly distributed, with no single day dominating monthly volume.

Fees Collected

System income hit $615K in August, down from $922K in July. Daily fees mostly ran $15K to $25K, with two spikes near $45K around August 20-21 and a final push on August 31, the month's high. The late-month pause showed up as a dip toward $10K on August 26.

One detail stands out: August 28 was the only day with a slashing fee on the chart. A validator was penalized that day, which aligns with the node disagreement that triggered the halt. Liquidity fees carried the rest of the month as always.

Rapid Swaps

Rapid swaps added $35.1M in volume across roughly 28K trades in August. Volume increased from $28.5M in July, while the number of trades nearly quadrupled from 7.5K.

The growth came from frequency rather than size. The average rapid swap fell to roughly $1.3K in August, down from about $3.8K in July. This mirrors the broader monthly pattern: more swaps, but at a smaller average size. Daily rapid swap volume briefly approached $2M on August 5 and again in the middle of the month, before dropping toward $100K around August 26 as the network paused.

Dynamic Fees

The second month of the ShapeShift pilot looked different from the first. In August, $487.8K was routed through THORChain, generating $217.58 in fees at an average rate of 4.08 bps, down from the 6.08 bps average over the previous three months.

Volume came in three main pulses: around $130K on August 11, $125K on August 18, and $110K on August 31, while most other days remained below $20K. Fee rates remained volatile, ranging from 2 to 11 bps, and did not consistently track volume. The largest volume day, August 11, cleared at around 7 bps, while the peak rate of 11 bps occurred on the second-largest day.

As in July, the fee rate spent much of the month below the standard 10 bps fixed fee, but the trend became more pronounced in August. The lower average rate suggests the dynamic mechanism is increasingly competing for price-sensitive flow rather than relying on fixed-fee routes.

Fee Capture

Fee capture per $1B of global exchange volume cooled from July's spike. The metric ran between roughly $170 and $580 for most of August, with a peak of $708 around August 19-20, well below July's $1,485 outlier.

July's number was inflated by a single high-fee day against the same global denominator. August had no equivalent, and the line settled into a lower, steadier band. The early-month peaks clustered around $570-580, with a dip into the low $100s mid-month before a late surge near $680.

Fees by Chain

ETH, BTC, RUNE, and TRON again led fee generation in August, with the same rotation as July. Most days ran $10K to $40K total, then a sharp spike near month end pushed close to $140K, driven by RUNE and ETH.

The spread held steady across the month. Ethereum and THORChain carried most days, with Bitcoin contributing the rest.

TCY and RUNE Yield

RUNE's 7-day APR opened August around 20%, peaked near 22% in the first days, then settled into a 9% to 16% band through mid-month. It pushed back up to 19.21% on August 25 before easing to around 12% by month end.

The 30-day APR started near 18% and drifted down to around 13%. That's the reverse of July's shape, where the 30-day line climbed all month. Now a full month of post-restart fees sits in the window, so the number stops rising and starts reflecting the current month's softer volume.

TCY's 7-day APR stayed low, holding between 2% and 5% and peaking at 4.97% on August 25, below July's 8.68% high. RUNE kept the yield, TCY stayed flat.

Retention and User Acquisition

August added 21.8K new wallets, up from 13.4K in July. Total unique wallets now sit at 1,131,579 all-time.

Active wallets showed 23.5K wallets using THORChain in August, up 57% month over month from 15.0K in July. That's the second straight monthly increase, after activity bottomed at just 1.4K wallets in June.

Security and Supply

Bonds

After more than 60 days halted, v3.20 unblocked the validator rotation, and the network churned in August.

The active set moved from 95 nodes down to 87, with 80 more in standby. Total bonded capital now sits at 83.47M RUNE ($40.65M), average bond 959,432 RUNE against a minimum of 351,500 RUNE and a maximum effective cap of 1,042,855 RUNE.

The next churn is already queued, with seven nodes set to enter and three to leave, a net gain of 4M RUNE in bonded capital. The rotation is back on its normal three-day cadence.

Protocol Owned Liquidity

POL went live with v3.20, routing 20% of system income into pools the protocol owns rather than paying it out. Three days in, the tracker built by Boone shows $19.09K in POL positions from 39.89K RUNE deployed.

The first position landed in the TRON.USDT pool, where the protocol holds an 8.672% share. RUNE is deposited each block and rebalanced to 1:1 against the paired token, so the protocol accumulates both sides of the position. 19.76K RUNE now sits in it, effectively out of circulation.

Note: Eligible pools are L1 gas tokens and certain stablecoins, chosen by highest fees-to-depth ratio over a three-day window. The 20% rate is set by node operator vote, not hardcoded.

Burn

RUNE burn tracked the volume curve through August, running roughly 1K to 4K RUNE a day. It peaked around 4,500 RUNE on August 19-20, matching the month's volume high, and ended the month near 4,000 RUNE. The same daily rhythm as volume, since burn follows every swap.

Frontends

Leaderboard by Volume

Affiliates routed $254M through THORChain in August. swap.thorchain.org led at $81.1M, SwapKit took $66.0M, and TrustWallet $44.7M.

The detail worth flagging is that two unidentified affiliates routed $30.7M, enough to land fourth and fifth on the board at $18.5M and $12.2M.

On the daily chart, SwapKit carried most of the peak days, especially around August 21 when total volume topped $23M. TrustWallet stepped up from mid-month onward. swap.thorchain.org stayed a consistent base layer across the whole month.