THORChain Weekly Live New chapter, fresh step forward: THORChain Podcast #182
Mar 20, 2026
They discuss Nine Realms stepping back and the plan for a decentralized handover. Operational transitions, node rebonding, and new hires are covered. Adding SOL, ZEC, PAXG and stablecoin strategies on various chains are explored. Router v6, rapid swaps, memo-less outbound transactions, Huginn monitoring, ADR23 burn, and meetup plans are highlighted.
AI Snips
Chapters
Transcript
Episode notes
How Nine Realms Grew Then Stepped Back
- Nine Realms began as Gavin's team to provide institutional liquidity and stewardship but later pivoted to development, infra, nodes and biz-dev.
- Chad recalled meeting Gavin in 2021 and praised Ursa and Apollo's past contributions while noting new hires are replacing exits.
Hiring More Devs Has Diminishing Returns
- Hiring more developers yields diminishing returns unless you scale the full review and testing pipeline.
- Aluxx cautioned that adding marginal hires without reviewers increases PR backlog, not speed.
Reduce Dev Costs By Optimizing Staging And Grants
- Cut unnecessary staging costs to save treasury funds, e.g., run stage net on bare metal instead of expensive AWS.
- Aluxx suggested using grants from GitLab and other foundations and cheaper infra choices to reduce monthly spend.