THORChain Q2 2025 Ecosystem Report & Q3 Roadmap

THORChain Updates for Q2 2025 and Roadmap — TCY, XRP, Rujira, Solana, and TRON

Nine Realms

09 Jul 2025 — 11 min read

1 April 2025–30 June 2025

Q2’24 Report | Q3’24 Report | Q4’24 Report | Q1’25 Report

Summary

Q2 2025 was a significant quarter for THORChain, highlighted by the launch of TCY to close the ThorFi chapter and refocus the network on cross-chain swaps and App Layer development. XRP integration went live, while work advanced on TRON and native USDC via Noble, expanding access to high-demand assets and strengthening stablecoin access.

Several protocol improvements shipped, including Batch Bifrost attestations to reduce network load, extended UTXO memos for more flexible swap instructions, and new operational tools like Maintenance Mode and bond provider migration. TVL cap controls were updated to allow dynamic scaling and exempt native assets, reducing risks to application-layer protocols. Swap fees were temporarily lowered to improve competitiveness, with revenue closely monitored.

Looking ahead, priorities include reducing block times to 2 seconds, completing EdDSA signing to support Solana, TON, and SUI, enabling direct IBC deposits, and expanding secured asset functionality. These upgrades lay the groundwork for faster settlement, broader asset support, and deeper integration across major ecosystems. The end goal is to have a stable and composable base layer and a vibrant DeFi ecosystem on the App Layer.

A Look at Q2 2025 Metrics

Quarterly Dashboard | Thorcharts | Thorchain.net | RUNE Tools

Total USD Volume: $10.4b
Highest 24h Volume: $327.58m
Change in Total Liquidity: $122m to $180m
Swap Fees Collected: $6.12m
Affiliate Earnings: $4.6m
Earnings Breakdown: 100% of earnings from Liquidity Fees on swaps

Top 5 Swap Routes by USD Volume

BTC <> ETH — $1,815,167,737
BTC <> USDT — $1,425,560,142
ETH <> RUNE — $1,290,356,152
BTC <> RUNE — $1,188,072,667
USDT <> RUNE — $1,054,477,447

Top 5 Swap Routes by Liquidity Fees (USD)

BTC <> ETH — $1,505,862
BTC <> USDT — $1,198,299
RUNE <> ETH — $905,327
BTC <> RUNE — $771,569
RUNE <> USDT — $734,051

Top Interfaces

Trust Wallet
SwapKit
THORWallet
THORSwap
Rujira
Li.Fi
Asgardex
Bitget Wallet
Rango Exchange
Ledger Live
TokenPocket
ShapeShift
Edge Wallet
Vultisig

What’s new to THORChain in Q2 2025?

Add TCY

PR | Medium Announcement | Video

TCY was successfully launched pursuant to Proposal 6, which passed governance in February 2025. This closes the ThorFi chapter and provides a structured resolution for outstanding claims, enabling the protocol to focus fully on core cross-chain swaps and App Layer development, currently centered on Rujira.

XRP Chain Integration

PR | Medium Announcement

XRP Chain was added to THORChain, enabling users to swap permissionlessly from XRP Ledger. THORChain treasury seeded the liquidity pool, and trading went live in June 2025. XRP was highly requested by swap integration partners, including Ledger.

Swap Fee Changes

A Mimir vote was conducted to decrease the minimum fee on Layer 1 swaps to 5 basis points, down from 8 basis points. This means that a double swap (e.g., BTC ⇄ ETH) now has a minimum fee of 0.10% rather than 0.16%. The maximum number of sub-swaps has also been adjusted accordingly, as it determines the number of streaming swaps required to meet the target minimum basis points. The change was made to make the network more competitive for quotes. The protocol is actively monitoring system volume and revenue on the Flipside dashboard to determine if changes are required.

TVL Cap Changes

PR | PR

Two changes were made to the TVL Cap. A new mimir multiplier was added to allow the nodes to have finer control over the TVL cap, at which point new liquidity can’t be added to the network, affecting arbitrage and now the App Layer / RUJI. The second change removes the TVL check for native THOR assets so that it can be ensured that the App Layer is unaffected by any future security changes, since being unable to mint new secured assets could have severe unintended consequences to contracts on the App Layer.

Two updates were made to the protocol’s Total Value Locked (TVL) caps:

Dynamic Scaling: A Mimir multiplier (TVLCapBasisPoints) was introduced to dynamically scale the effective TVL cap by applying a basis point factor over the total bonded RUNE. This allows Node Operators control over how conservative or permissive the cap should be.
Native Asset Exclusion: The TVL cap check was removed for all native THORChain assets (any assets with the THOR. prefix, including RUNE, TOR, TCY, RUJI, and switch assets). This ensures assets native to THORChain are not unnecessarily counted toward the TVL cap.

Together, these changes give nodes more flexible controls while reducing the risk of disruptions to application-layer protocols.

Batch Bifrost Attestations

A major refactor of the Bifrost module introduced batching of observation attestations into single messages per block. Instead of broadcasting a separate message for every transaction seen on external chains, nodes now bundle multiple observations together and send them as one consolidated batch. This significantly reduces network traffic and on-chain records, improves efficiency, and lays the groundwork for enabling shorter block times in future upgrades. Conceptually, this works similarly to UTXO batching, but applied to transaction observations.

Extended UTXO Memos

Support was added to extend memo size limits across all UTXO chains by combining OP_RETURN outputs with additional encoded outputs in the same transaction. Nodes now reconstruct the full memo by concatenating the OP_RETURN payload and any extra segments embedded in output scripts. This enables longer and more complex instructions for swaps and contract calls on chains like Bitcoin, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Dogecoin.

THORNode Maintenance Mode

A THORNode operator can now specify that their node is in “Maintenance Mode.” When enabled, the node is temporarily removed from active validator rotation without fully leaving the network. This allows operators to safely perform maintenance without triggering a churn event or risking network disruption.

Delete Node Mimir

Validators can now submit a “-1” vote on any Mimir parameter to remove their previous vote. When a majority threshold is reached, the parameter is unset and reverts to its default behaviour. This change improves governance flexibility by allowing validators to correct mistakes or abstain from positions without overwriting them with new values.

What’s new to Rujira in Q2 2025?

Rujira’s Merge is live

On April 5th, the Merge went live, allowing holders of tokens from the projects that make up Rujira to merge their tokens into RUJI. So far, almost 80% of all tokens have been merged into $RUJI.

Soft launch: RUJI Trade and Pools

The first two core products of Rujira, RUJI Trade (the orderbook DEX) and RUJI Pools (the automated market maker for the orderbook), were soft launched. The initial pairs available on the orderbook are RUJI and the Rujira ecosystem tokens AUTO, NAMI, and LQDY, with Base Layer tokens soon to be added. RUJI Pools currently only supports XYK strategies, with more to be added soon.

Docs RUJI Trade and RUJI Pools

Soft launch: RUJI Leagues

Alongside the launch of RUJI Trade and Pools, the leaderboard for RUJI Leagues went live. RUJI Leagues will be Rujira’s in-house points competition where points are awarded to addresses that generate revenue for the protocol, maximizing alignment of interest between the users and RUJI and RUNE token holders. Season 1 will begin later this year, allowing users to earn RUJI and USDC rewards, with all prior points counting toward it.

Redacted will build the privacy layer on Rujira

Rujira welcomed Redacted, a familiar name from the old Terra ecosystem. Redacted will build the compliant privacy layer on Rujira, where users will be able to create private accounts, deposit funds, and interact with apps or transfer assets in a privacy-preserving way, all from within the Rujira interface.

Compliance measures will be in place, including an exclusion list to block deposits from OFAC blacklisted addresses and a Proof of Innocence mechanism allowing users to prove their funds are not associated with bad actors.

RUJI TGE and trading goes live

Rujira’s TGE and trading for the App Layer token, $RUJI, went live last month. $RUJI is now tradeable on the Rujira orderbook DEX (RUJI Trade), several THORChain front-ends like RUJI Swap, THORWallet, THORSwap and LeoDex, and centralized exchange Kraken.

Users who merged their tokens, excluding KUJI and rKUJI due to an issue solved in THORChain v3.8, can now withdraw their RUJI and either start trading, or remain in the Merge contract to earn bonus tokens, or stake their tokens to earn protocol revenue once staking goes live.

Soft launch: RUJI Perps

Another core product has gone live this quarter. RUJI Perps, built by the Levana team, soft launched with limits on leverage, liquidity, and available markets to reduce risk as it solely relies on TOR price feed at the moment. Perps launched with 4x leverage, a $10,000 liquidity cap, and 10 markets including BTC and ETH, and the market for RUNE and XRP will follow shortly. The liquidity caps and leverage limit will be increased once enshrined oracles go live.

Docs RUIJ Perps

THORChain Roadmap — Current Development Priorities

A number of new features are in development by Nine Realms, RUJI contributors, and other independent teams. Designs and timelines may evolve before mainnet release.

EdDSA Signing

THORChain was built using ECDSA vaults. THORChain needs to add EdDSA to add new chains such as Solana, Cardano, TON, and SUI.

TRON Integration

TRON integration has been completed and is scheduled to go live in July 2025. Due to the way TRON gas fees work, USDT and other TRC-20 assets may not be immediately available in order to keep TRX swap costs low. The development team is working with TRON maintainers to resolve these issues and expand asset support.

2 Second Block Times

The development team is targeting a reduction in block times from 6 seconds to 2 seconds. This change will improve overall chain performance and accelerate streaming swaps. Architectural optimizations are underway to reduce chain bloat and reach the 2-second target.

SOL & Other Chain Integrations

Work is focused on Solana integration after the successful EdDSA addition. Additional chains are under consideration, including TON and SUI (both requiring EdDSA), Cardano, and Arbitrum. Node operators are encouraged to signal which chains they support or oppose adding.

Noble Chain

PR
Support is being added for NOBLE.USDC, the native USDC issued directly by Circle on the Noble appchain. This integration will enable THORChain pools to accept canonical USDC without bridging risk, strengthening the collateral base for TOR redemptions and improving stability for App Layer protocols such as RUJI that rely on high-quality stablecoin liquidity.

Direct IBC Deposit

This change allows users to send IBC assets to a Cosmos Hub vault to trigger a swap or other action. It lays the groundwork for supporting additional Cosmos tokens without requiring separate chain integrations, as inbound transfers can now be observed via IBC. To be credited or swapped, assets must still be explicitly recognized by the protocol and have either a liquidity pool or a reference pricing mechanism.

Secured Assets for LP Deposit / Withdrawal

This change enables Secured Assets (e.g., BTC-BTC) to be used as inputs when creating or redeeming liquidity positions in base layer pools. When deposited, secured tokens are burned, and their collateral is accounted for as part of the L1 pool balances, alongside native assets. On withdrawal, secured assets are re-minted in proportion to the redeemed share. This approach maintains unified liquidity while allowing App Layer protocols to automate deposits and build products like borrowing against LP positions.

Migrate Bond Provider Wallet (Rebond)

Bond Providers can migrate their bond provider address to a new whitelisted address on the same node without needing to unbond and rebond. This allows bond providers to rotate addresses or recover from a compromised wallet without requiring the node to churn out of the active validator set.

Enshrined Oracles

Enshrined oracles will be THORChain’s new built-in price feed system, designed to provide secure, manipulation-resistant pricing. The system commits prices ahead of transaction execution within a very narrow time window, less than one-third of a block, making it nearly impossible for attackers to predict or exploit future prices. This ensures fairer execution for all users. Prices are aggregated from multiple centralized exchanges, including Coinbase, Binance, and OKX, and filtered to exclude outliers. Rujira will be able to use enshrined oracles to improve its existing products and expand the offerings to include crypto, forex, stocks, and more.

RUJI Roadmap

RUJI Pools strategies

Additional strategies will be deployed on RUJI Pools to provide deeper liquidity on the orderbook, improve user experience, and create a more attractive environment for larger traders.

Base Layer Virtualization Strategy: This strategy virtualizes liquidity from the Base Layer pools, allowing users and smart contracts on the App Layer to tap into the Base Layer liquidity in an atomic fashion. When a virtualized quote is accepted in the orderbook, the AMM borrows the purchased asset via Rujira’s Money Market (RUJI Lending), delivers it to the buyer, and then executes a swap in the Base Layer pools to repay the loan in the following block.
Docs
Orbital Strategy: An iteration of concentrated liquidity tailored for correlated assets such as stablecoins. It offers enhanced protection against depegs. More information: Paradigm: Orbital.
USDC Unification Strategy: Developed by Nami Protocol, this strategy builds on the principles of the Base Layer Virtualization strategy but uses Circle’s CCTP instead of Base Layer pools to settle USDC across networks.
Concentrated Liquidity Strategy: A Uniswap v3-style concentrate liquidity strategy tailored for RUJI Trade orderbook, allowing users to provide liquidity in a pre-defined range for much improved capital efficiency.
Yield streaming: Capability for liquidity providers on RUJI Pools to separate the yield from the principal, allowing for better tracking of positions’ performance and more composability.

New RUJI products

In Q3, the following products are expected to go live on Rujira:

RUJI AI: An AI agent, built by AutoRujira, that allows users to check their portfolio, swap tokens, and manage orders through a ChatGPT-like interface. More product integrations and features will follow, including the capability to deploy autonomous agents.
RUJI Launchpad: A platform where new projects can issue tokens and raise capital via a unique Dutch auction-style mechanism for optimal price discovery.
Docs
RUJI Collections: An NFT marketplace with several curated NFT collection launches already lined up, as well as utility NFTs such as Rujira Names and consumable in-game assets.
Docs
RUJI Index: Tokenized indices, built by Nami Protocol, giving users exposure to curated baskets of assets through a single token, making it easier to diversify. The first indices include yRUNE, yTCY, and RJI.
Docs
RUJI Lending: A money market offering innovative features such as bidding on discounted BTC liquidations with instant borrowing against the acquired BTC, auto-rotating collateral like ETH into BTC without repaying loans, and prioritizing liquidation order to protect key holdings. Users can also open multiple credit accounts to isolate or cross-collateralize assets as needed.
Docs
BTC-backed Overcollateralized Stablecoin: A stablecoin fully backed by BTC and secured with excess collateral to ensure long-term solvency.
RUJI Liquidations: A Dutch auction-based marketplace where users can purchase liquidated assets from RUJI Lending and the stablecoin protocol at up to a 30% discount, helping to maintain the health of the Rujira ecosystem.
Docs

Global Referral & Affiliate System

Rujira will implement a global system to manage both referral and affiliate fees across its apps, helping drive growth through integrators, KOLs, and anyone willing to join its decentralized salesforce. The referral fee will be taken directly from protocol revenue, allowing partners to drive volume at no extra cost to the end user. In contrast, the affiliate fee will be charged on top of the protocol fee (following the same model as THORChain), which is ideal for integrators with a captive, price-insensitive user base.

RUJI Analytics

RUJI Analytics will be Rujira’s in-house solution for monitoring usage and economic activity across its core apps. It will offer a comprehensive set of dashboards that present data in a clear and digestible format, including revenue and usage statistics by core app, LP performance metrics for RUJI Pools, RUJI token statistics, and more.

Station Wallet

Station Wallet, Rujira’s in-house wallet designed for its products and omnichain vision, will see its first version go live. It will launch as a mobile app, with a browser extension to follow, both optimized for the Rujira experience. At a later stage, Vultisig will integrate with Rujira, allowing users to set up seedless wallets.

The team acknowledges that this is an ambitious list and may not deliver everything within Q3. However, these are the key priorities outlined in their roadmap for the remainder of the year.

Where to get more information about THORChain?

Twitter Spaces — subscribe on RSS or wherever you get your podcasts
THORChain University — educational content, monthly posts, & discord server
THORChain University Updates — monthly update articles
GrassRoots Crypto — update videos

Community

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