TL;DR
- THORChain recorded $613M in August swap volume, down 23% from July’s $796.97M.
- Active wallets climbed 57% to 23.5K, while 21.8K new wallets joined the network.
- Protocol-owned liquidity went live through v3.20, directing 20% of system income into protocol-controlled positions.
THORChain closed August with $613M in swap volume, marking a 23% decline from July’s $796.97M. The drop, however, came without the unusually large daily spike that boosted July, when a single $75M session significantly lifted the monthly figure.
User activity moved in the opposite direction. Active wallets reached 23.5K, up 57% month over month, while 21.8K new wallets joined during August. That brought total unique wallets to more than 1.13 million, suggesting that network participation continued expanding even as aggregate trading volume cooled.
THORChain Activity Becomes More Distributed
August’s volume developed more evenly across the month. Daily activity reached roughly $40M around August 20–21 before falling sharply on August 26–27 following a network halt linked to a node execution mismatch. THORChain recovered quickly, with daily volume returning to approximately $30M–$34M during the final 2 days.
Rapid swaps also showed stronger usage frequency. The segment processed $35.1M across roughly 28K trades, compared with $28.5M and 7.5K trades in July. The average transaction size fell from about $3.8K to $1.3K, indicating more frequent smaller transactions.
System income reached $615K, compared with $922K in July. Dynamic fees remained below the standard 10-basis-point fixed rate for much of the month, while the ShapeShift pilot generated $217.58 from $487.8K in routed volume.
Protocol-Owned Liquidity Adds A New Layer
The launch of Protocol Owned Liquidity under v3.20 represents one of August’s most significant structural changes. The mechanism directs 20% of system income toward liquidity positions controlled by the protocol instead of distributing that portion externally.
Within its first 3 days, POL accumulated $19.09K in positions from 39.89K RUNE deployed. The initial position was established in the TRON.USDT pool, where THORChain held an 8.672% share.
RUNE also continued generating a higher yield than TCY. Its 7-day APR moved between 9% and 22% during the month, while TCY remained between 2% and 5%.
August therefore presented a mixed but constructive picture. Trading volume normalized after July’s exceptional surge, while wallet growth, rapid-swap activity and protocol-owned liquidity pointed to continued development across the network.
