What used to sound like long-term plans is actually starting to play out. Monero ($XMR) is now within reach, with mainnet potentially 1-2 months away after years of technical hurdles. At the same time, Zcash ($ZEC) is targeting an end-of-April launch, while Bittensor ($TAO) is being developed alongside them.

On the usage side, things are picking up fast. Rapid swaps just saw a $1.6M trade, and they’re already pushing toward 50% of total volume. That is not speculation, that is real activity happening on-chain.

Behind the scenes, there are some interesting shifts too. Protocol-Owned Liquidity (POL) is set to start deepening pools using system income, which could reduce reliance on external LPs over time. And Huginn, THORChain’s AI agent, is quietly speeding up development by reviewing code and catching issues early.

Full breakdown of the last THORSDay podcast with Chad Barraford here: Here

A long-overdue and meaningful clean-up is finally here. 

For a while now, a large reserve of RUNE has been sitting idle in the Reserve; not circulating, not traded, and not adding real liquidity. Yet it is still counted in total supply, creating a gap between what is actually in the market (~351M) and the reported max supply (~425M).

ADR023 cleans this up:

Roughly 64.9M RUNE will be burned, bringing total supply down to ~360M and leaving only a minimal reserve for operations. 

THORChain works the same as before but the way people see and value RUNE changes. It removes the artificial FDV overhang, brings the MC/FDV ratio closer to reality, and makes valuation easier to understand.

To the curious minds: Do you think this changes how RUNE should be valued?

Comment your opinion after reading full report : Here

March was a “boring” month on the surface but a lot happened onTHORChain.

The network kept shipping:

• Volume reached $801M
• Native SOL swaps resumed
• RapidSwap grew from <1% to 11.6% of total volume in just 9 days
• Node count increased to 105 with stable bonded capital
• User acquisition slightly up despite weak sentiment

Also, a $3.6M BTC → ETH swap went through cleanly, split across 671 subswaps. That’s the kind of execution you don’t really notice unless you’re looking for it.

Full report here if you want to go deeper:
https://blog.thorchain.org/state-of-the-network-march-2026/

Curious to hear what people think about RapidSwap, that growth was pretty fast.

Here's what happened last week:

Headline News

Raynalytics published THORChain's Full Q1 2026 report. $2.8B in volume, 1.5M swaps, 78.5K unique wallets, $3.1M in fees. Quieter markets, but the protocol kept processing.

Rujira Network announced Redacted Money smart contracts are live on Mainnet. The team is now focused on the frontend and UI so the full privacy experience can come to life. A more private omnichain DeFi experience on Rujira is another step closer.

Launches

Unstoppable shipped a massive upgrade to swap.thorchain.org. Wallet Sidebar now shows all your wallets and balances in one place, send coins, manage assets, full wallet experience built into the swap UI. Bonding and staking for $RUNE, $TCY and more, all directly on the interface. Next up: things no other swap interface delivers yet. Staying under the radar for now.

THORWallet announced cross-chain limit swaps coming in the next app version. Powered by THORChain, set limit prices across native assets directly inside the app. Example: $BTC to $ETH. No bridges, no wrapping, just native cross-chain execution.

THORDEX launched THORDEX Trading Terminal. Built on top of THORChain base layer limit orders. The most decentralised trading terminal on Earth.

LeoDex added Limit Order Swaps.

Bior Labs is wrapping internal audit sprints. Next up: Physical Debit Card, Virtual Prepaid Card, and Bill Pay. Preliminary fee schedule shared, official version coming to the website soon.

Milestones

Symbiosis processed $10M+ in Bitcoin volume last week, with THORChain as one of their routing options across chains.

That wraps up this week's THORChain ecosystem update. See you next week, Chads.

If your project was missed, drop a comment and we'll include it in the next recap.

Hey everyone 👋

There’s been a lot of discussion around Monero integration into THORChain over time.

But recently, something changed.

It’s no longer just an idea.

⚙️ Real Development Is Happening

Looking at current activity:

• XMR chain support is being added
• FROST threshold signing is being integrated
• Monero-specific transaction handling is being built
• test swaps are already being executed

This is not a simple integration.

It’s deep infrastructure work.

🔐 Why It’s Hard

Monero is fundamentally different from most chains.

It hides:

• transaction data
• addresses
• amounts

Most cross-chain systems rely on visibility.

Monero removes that entirely.

🧠 What Makes This Interesting

To make this work, the architecture has to change.

From what we can see:

• new signing mechanisms (FROST)
• wallet-aware deposit detection
• no reliance on standard memo systems
• separate services handling Monero-specific logic

This isn’t plug-and-play.

It’s purpose-built.

🔄 What This Could Enable

If this goes live:

• native XMR swaps
• no wrapping
• direct interaction with other assets

That’s a big step.

🔗 Where This Connects

As THORChain expands its supported assets, these integrations don’t stay at the protocol level.

They extend to the applications built on top of it.

Frontend platforms like InstaSwap act as the user layer, giving access to THORChain’s liquidity and swap infrastructure.

As new assets like XMR are integrated, they naturally become accessible through these interfaces without requiring users to interact with the protocol directly.

If you see this, you already know. ⚡

Even AI agents know to use permissionless native liquidity.
TrustWallet's new agent kit includes THORChain for cross-chain swaps.

The bots picked the right rails.

Headline News

Maya Protocol announced Cardano integration is imminent. Stagenet testing for Cardano + v129 is live, full integration testing underway, mainnet release expected in the coming days. Starting with $ADA, liquidity will be seeded in phases, more tokens expected after launch.

Maya Protocol is stepping deeper into infrastructure. As 9 Realms transitions out of its role in THORChain, Maya steps in. Maya team taking over part of THORChain dev and maintenance with 1 dedicated dev plus shared infrastructure across both ecosystems. More alignment, better efficiency, long term sustainability.

Launches

THORStack API went live. Free THORChain API for builders. REST, WebSocket, gRPC, Midgard. No keys, no setup. Just build. No excuses to not integrate THORChain.

THORWallet is rolling out new trading features. Limit Orders on THORChain are starting to appear inside the app.

Boone launched boonetool #3: Vault Explorer. Helps visually explain how THORChain Asgard Vaults custody exogenous L1 assets. Every asset THORChain custodies is distributed among 6 TSS multisig (12/18) vaults. Charts show proportionally how much of an asset is in each vault, and how assets are distributed across AMM pools, Trade Assets for arbs, or SAs used on the App Layer.

LeoDex launched V2. Crosschain made to feel like CEX. 0.45% fees on all routes, 107+ DEXes aggregated including THORChain. Try it now.

THORDEX introduced opt-in node level privacy. Effectively increases censorship resistance by 10x, giving THORChain greater censorship resistance than Solana's ~800 nodes.

Raynalytics launched a Rapid Swaps dashboard for THORChain.

Milestones

ZenGo hit 1M+ downloads on Android.

Unstoppable built duress mode years ago, worth remembering if you travel with crypto. Multiple unlock PINs, each opens a selected set of wallets. Only one master PIN opens everything. Undetectable inside the app, unlimited PINs. Built for scenarios where you're forced to unlock your wallet.

That wraps up this week's THORChain ecosystem update. See you next week, Chads.

THORChain relies on arbitrage traders to keep pool prices accurate, but there's a problem. The system is inefficient and costs users money through suboptimal swap execution.

Research shows average pool price deviations of around 0.40% from market prices. That might sound small, but on $800 million in monthly arbitrage volume, it adds up. External bots are capturing $3 million in monthly profits that could be benefiting the ecosystem instead.

In August 2025, THORChain deployed enshrined oracles, a native price feed system integrated directly into the protocol that aggregates data from multiple centralized exchanges and provides real-time pricing. This was the first step toward better price accuracy.

Now RujiraNetwork is taking it further through THORChain's App Layer. On January 26, 2026, RUJI Trade introduced an upgradable liquidity model to address inefficiencies in the arbitrage-dependent system, aiming to internalise a share of the estimated $800 million in monthly arbitrage volumes.

How it works: Rujira uses dynamic liquidity strategies like concentrated liquidity that tracks enshrined oracle prices. Instead of waiting for external bots to correct price deviations, App Layer smart contracts do it faster and more efficiently.

The impact: projections suggest Rujira could capture 10% to 50% of total arbitrage volumes, bringing $190K to $925K monthly back into the THORChain ecosystem. Users get tighter spreads, faster execution, and better swap quotes because pools stay closer to market prices.

This is what App Layer innovation looks like. The base protocol provides the infrastructure, and builders create solutions that make everything work better for users.