THORChain at crossroads: Decentralization clashes with illicit activity

Can DeFi protocols remain neutral when faced with massive criminal exploitation, or must they evolve to avoid regulatory crackdowns? THORChain has been called a money laundering protocol — a label no decentralized finance (DeFi) project wants unless it’s prepared to have regulators breathing down its neck.

Its supporters have fended off the criticism by championing decentralization, while its critics point to recent activities that showed some of the protocol’s centralized tendencies. After exploiting Bybit for $1.4 billion, the North Korean state-backed hackers behind the attack, known as the Lazarus Group, flocked to THORChain, making it their top choice to convert stolen funds from Ether (ETH) to Bitcoin (BTC).

Lazarus finished converting its Ether within just 10 days of the hack. The controversy has triggered internal conflict, governance cracks, and a difficult decision for the protocol: take action or risk having regulators step in to make that decision.

THORChain's growing regulatory risks, as previously demonstrated by privacy tools, have put it at a crossroads. The protocol must decide whether to take action now or risk having regulators step in to make that decision for them.

For now, the protocol remains firm in its laissez-faire approach, but history suggests DeFi projects that ignore illicit activity don’t stay untouchable forever.

"Critics often claim that privacy-focused projects enable crime, but in reality, protecting financial privacy is a fundamental right and a cornerstone of decentralized innovation," Chen Feng, head of research at Autonomys and associate professor and research chair in blockchain at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan Campus, told Cointelegraph.

"Technologies like ZK-proofs and trusted execution environments can secure user data without obscuring illicit activity entirely. Through optional transparency measures and robust onchain forensics, suspicious patterns can still be detected. The goal is to strike a balance: empower users with privacy while ensuring the system has built-in safeguards to discourage and trace illicit use."

Lin of SynFutures said continued illicit use of decentralized protocols would "absolutely" lead to drastic measures from authorities.

"Governments will likely escalate measures if they perceive decentralized protocols as systemic risks. This could include sanctioning protocol addresses, pressuring infrastructure providers, blacklisting entire networks or going after the builders," she said.