THORChain is a decentralised cross-chain liquidity protocol based on Tendermint & Cosmos-SDK and utilising Threshold Signature Schemes (TSS). It does not peg or wrap assets, it simply determines how to move them in response to user-actions.

The Protocol observes incoming user deposits to vaults, executes business logic (swap, add/remove liquidity), and processes outbound transactions. Basically, it is primarily a leaderless vault manager, ensuring that every stage of the process is byzantine-fault-tolerant.

THORChain's key objective is to be resistant to centralisation and capture whilst facilitating cross-chain liquidity. THORChain only secures the assets in its vaults, and has economic guarantees that those assets are safe.

What is RUNE?

RUNE is the asset which powers the THORChain ecosystem and provides the economic incentives required to secure the network.

RUNE is traded against other assets in every pool on Thorchain, providing a bridge for assets from different blockchains. Staking RUNE also earns users votes on governance proposals and fees from trading, while bonding RUNE lets nodes validate transactions and earn new RUNE generated each block.

References:

https://docs.thorchain.org/rune

https://zipmex.com/th/en/coin-info/rune-th

RUNE has four key roles which are described below.

• Liquidity (as a settlement asset)
• Security (as a sybil-resistant mechanism, and a means for driving economic behaviour)
• Governance (signalling priority on-chain)
• Incentives (paying out rewards, charging fees, subsidising gas)

The below graph shows the volume on Thorchain by burn Assets broken down by chain ETH + BNB over the past 6 months.

THORChain does not peg or wrap assets, so no need for WBTC, for example. Prior to THORChain, moving Bitcoin between exchanges was difficult, and WBTC was a requirement as it was an ERC-20 version of the token that represented Bitcoin on the Ethereum Blockchain, and due to the fact that WBTC is integrated into EThereum, it automatically gained support for Ethereum wallets, decentralized applications (dApps) and smart contract

The below graph shows the Total volume based on ETH asset on a daily basis over the past 6 months on Thorchain network.

Here is the visual that shows the Total volume based on BNB asset on a daily basis over the past 6 months on Thorchain network.