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THORChain’s co-founder wants you to rethink what decentralization actually means. His case: a handful of operators could halt THORChain, but even fewer parties could stop Bitcoin or Ethereum.
Chad Barraford, THORChain’s co-founder and lead developer, made that argument in October 2026. It’s a bold claim to make about the two largest blockchains, especially while your own protocol is taking heat over a hack.
The fight over who gets to say no
The debate flared back up after Bitget suffered a hack in September 2026. The estimated loss sits at $387.5 million.
THORChain then declined to intervene on funds linked to the hackers. That refusal is the source of most of the criticism.
Barraford’s defense rests on neutrality. In his view, THORChain cannot pick and choose which transactions to block, any more than Bitcoin or Ethereum can.
So who actually makes decisions on THORChain? According to Barraford, governance is collective. Validators vote, and most changes require approval from two-thirds of nodes.
Why critics aren’t convinced
The pushback centers on how THORChain is built. The protocol uses a threshold signature scheme, or TSS, to control funds.
Critics argue that collective custody creates vulnerabilities Bitcoin and Ethereum simply don’t have. Those networks don’t hold pooled user funds under a shared signing arrangement in the same way.
Emergency procedures can pause the network for multiples of 720 blocks. Each 720-block window works out to approximately 1 hour.
More pointedly, governance votes under THORChain’s Mimir system may need as few as three or four validators for certain actions. That’s where the line about four operators halting the chain comes from.
Critics frame this as a contradiction. If a few validators can pause the whole network, why can’t they freeze funds tied to a hack?
The blacklist that isn’t there anymore
THORChain’s answer partly traces back to February 2025. That’s when the protocol retired address blacklisting.
The stated reason was neutrality. THORChain said it can no longer selectively block any addresses, which removes the tool critics might want it to use now.
This distinction matters to Barraford’s argument. Pausing a network affects everyone equally. Blocking a specific address singles someone out, and that’s the move THORChain says it gave up.
A familiar crypto dilemma, with a sharper edge
Bitcoin and Ethereum have largely answered by making governance slow and hard to change. That rigidity frustrates developers but makes the networks resistant to pressure from any single group.
THORChain took a different path. It chose flexibility, with emergency levers and validator votes that can move fast when something goes wrong.
Barraford is effectively arguing that the outcome is the same. If neither Bitcoin nor Ethereum nor THORChain will censor specific transactions, then all three share the same core neutrality, regardless of how many hands sit on the pause button.
Critics counter that the number of hands is exactly the point. A network that a small group can halt has a different risk profile than one that requires broad coordination to stop.
What this means for THORChain and DeFi
For DeFi more broadly, investors evaluating protocols may need to look beyond marketing claims of decentralization and examine how governance actually works.
Key questions include how many validators are required for emergency actions, who holds signing authority over pooled funds, and what tools the protocol has deliberately removed.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Estefano Gomez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
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