State of the Network - September 2026

September's headline numbers were shaped by a few exceptional days, but the work underneath kept moving:

• Swap volume reached $2.40B, with more than half concentrated in a single late-month window.
• System income rose to $3.01M, up from $615K in August.
• Active wallets increased for a third straight month to 25.0K, with 22.4K new wallets.
• POL completed its first full month, with 946.45K RUNE deposited and $679.12K in positions.
• Edge Wallet and Symbiosis joined ShapeShift in the dynamic fee model.
• The RUNE burn share was cut from 5% to 1%, as POL took on a larger role in system income.
• The active set grew to 103 nodes, with 97.66M RUNE bonded.
• swap.thorchain.org led affiliates at $163.85M, followed by two unlabeled affiliates and SwapKit.

Volume and Fees

General volume

September closed at $2.40B in total swap volume, up from $613M in August. Most of that difference came from one window: between September 25 and 29, daily volume ran between roughly $190M and $460M as funds linked to the Bitget exploit moved through the network. Those five days account for around $1.37B, more than half of the month.

Outside of these days, activity followed a more familiar pattern. Daily volume opened in a $25M to $45M range, dropped to around $5M on September 5-6, then held mostly between $10M and $65M through the rest of the month, before settling back near $38M on September 30.

Fees Collected

System income reached $3.01M in September, up from $615K in August. Fees tracked volume, mostly running $5K to $70K a day, with spikes near $330K on September 10 and $825K on September 26. The September 25-29 window generated about $1.9M, close to two thirds of the month. September 27 was the only day with a slashing fee.

Rapid Swaps

Rapid swaps added around $43M in volume across roughly 19K trades in September, up from $35.1M in August, while trade count fell from 28K. The average rapid swap rose to about $2.3K from $1.3K: fewer trades, larger size. September 28-29 alone added close to $13M, with a peak near $7.8M. Outside those days, daily volume mostly held between $0.5M and $2M. Trade count peaked at around 2,300 on September 15, a day with only moderate volume.

Dynamic Fees

Edge Wallet and Symbiosis joined ShapeShift in the dynamic L1 minimum fee model on September 26, after a node operator vote. For these affiliates, the minimum fee is set per trading pair instead of the network-wide 10 bps, and moves 1 bp up or down each day based on the revenue the pair generates.

Before enrollment, Edge Wallet swaps cleared at around 10 bps. The rate dropped close to zero on September 26, then rose each day: 1.8 bps on September 27, 2.8 bps on September 28-29, and 3.9 bps on September 30. Since enrollment, $1.7M was routed through Edge at an average of 2.66 bps.Since enrollment, Edge has routed around $280K a day, against $175K a day over the previous three months. Six days is a short window, but it's the expected effect: lower fees on the right pairs bring more flow from integrators.

Fee Capture

Fee capture per $1B of global exchange volume followed the same pattern as volume. Outside the spikes, the metric ran between roughly $100 and $750, close to August's band. It jumped to around $3,450 on September 10, then to a peak near $7,600 on September 26, holding around $4,000 on September 27-28 before falling back to the $300s by month end. Like July's outlier, these numbers come from a few heavy days against the same global denominator.

Fees by Chain

Ethereum, Bitcoin and RUNE led fee generation through most of September, with most days running $10K to $70K in total. XRPL stood out in the late-month window: on September 26, it brought in $501K of roughly $869K in fees, ahead of Bitcoin at $217K and Ethereum at $85K. By September 28-29, the mix was back to Bitcoin, Ethereum and RUNE.

TCY and RUNE Yield

RUNE's 7-day APR held between 8% and 12% in early September, rose to around 34% on September 13 after the September 10 spike, then fell back below 10% from September 17. The late-month fees pushed it to 69.03% on September 29. The 30-day APR moved from 11% to 30.05%. TCY's 7-day APR followed the same shape, from 1-2% to 29.74%, well above August's 4.97% high. These levels come from a few heavy days and will ease as they leave the window.

Protocol Owned Liquidity

POL completed its first full month. 946.45K RUNE has now been deposited, up from 39.89K at the end of August, and the positions are worth $679.12K. Deposits follow system income, so most came on September 10 and in the late-month window, peaking near 212K RUNE on September 26. POL now sits in three pools:

XRP ($226.4K), USDT on TRON ($107.3K) and TRX ($5.8K), alongside 427.7K RUNE held out of circulation. Estimated fees earned: $113.25K.

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.

Retention and User Acquisition

September added 22.4K new wallets, up from 21.8K in August. Total unique wallets now sit at 1,152,614 all-time. Active wallets reached 25.0K, up from 23.5K, the third straight monthly increase since June's low and the highest level since April. Wallet numbers barely moved with the late-month volume, a sign that the spike came from a few large flows rather than a wave of new users.

Security and Supply

Bonds

The active set grew from 87 to 103 nodes. Total bonded capital now sits at 97.66M RUNE ($77.39M), up from 83.47M RUNE in August. The average bond is 948,114 RUNE, against a minimum of 360,116 RUNE and a maximum effective cap of 1,024,512 RUNE. The latest churn also brought the Zcash chain online. The next one is queued with six nodes entering and two leaving, a net gain of around 2M RUNE in bonded capital.

Burn

RUNE burn reached around 94K RUNE in September, up from 71K in August, while system income grew almost five times. The gap comes from a change in how system income is split: the burn share was cut from 5% to 1% in mid-September, with POL now taking 20%. September 10 burned around 32K RUNE under the old split, the month's high. Fewer RUNE are burned directly, but POL now holds 427.7K RUNE out of circulation.

Frontends

Leaderboard by Volume

Affiliates earned $840.7K in fees in September, up from around $250K in August and the highest monthly total since January's $1.03M. These fees go to the frontends, on top of THORChain's system income. Most of it came from the late-month window, and around $669K went to unlabeled affiliates. Among named frontends, TrustWallet led at $56.5K, followed by Edge Wallet at $25.6K and THORSwap at $18.9K.

swap.thorchain.org led the board at $163.85M across 3,240 swaps, with a top swap of $10.05M. Two unlabeled affiliates followed at $44.4M and $30.4M, ahead of SwapKit at $27.6M. SwapKit had the widest reach, with 14,086 users across 17,660 swaps. Asgardex rounded out the top five at $17.7M.