By November 2024, Thorbjornsen, who describes himself as “a bit flamboyant”, was calling himself Thorchain’s CEO (“Chief Energy Officer”) and “master of memes” in a video at Binance Blockchain Week, an industry conference in Dubai. “To create a community, to create a cult, you need “strong memory energy,” he says in the video.” Creeds indicate centralized leadership, and Thorbjornsen has since appeared publicly leading the project, introducing herself as “Lena”, with one interviewer deeming her “Thorchain Satoshi” (a nod to Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator).
One consequence of going public as the face of the protocol: he has received death threats. “I provoked it. Do I regret it? Who knows?” He said, when we met in Australia. “This has caused a lot of chaos.”
But, he added, “This is the bed I have laid.” When we spoke again months later, he backtracked, saying he was “sucked in” to defend Thorchain in 2024 and 2025 because he was involved from 2018 to 2021 and “has a perspective on how the protocol operates.”
centralized?
Ryan Treat, a retired US Army veteran, woke up one morning in January 2025 and noticed some disturbing activity on X. “My heart sank,” he says. THORFi, the ThorChain program he used to earn interest on Bitcoin he planned to save for his retirement, had frozen all accounts – but it meant nothing.
THORFi includes a lending and savings program, giving users “full control” and self-custody over their crypto, meaning they can withdraw it at any time.
Treat was no crypto hobbyist. He bought his first bitcoins at about “$5 each,” he says, and always kept them away from centralized exchanges that would maintain the security of his wallet. They liked Thorchain because it claimed to be decentralized and permissionless. “I got into Bitcoin because I wanted governmentless money,” he says.
We were told it was decentralized. Then you wake up one morning and read that this guy had an admin named Mimir.
Many people who use Thorfi lending and savings programs feel the same way. Users I interviewed distinguished Thorchain from centralized lending platforms like BlockFi and Celsius, both of which offered exceptionally high yields before filing for bankruptcy in 2022. “I saw Thorchain as a decentralized system where it was more secure,” says Halsey Richards, a Florida-based Thorfi lender. “Vanilla, 1% passive yield.” In fact, most of the users I spoke to did not feel the need to monitor their THORFi deposits. The product’s marketing materials asserted, “Only your key can be used to withdraw your funds.” “Savers can withdraw their positions in the original asset at any time.”
So on January 9, when the “Lena” account announced that an administrator key had been used to prevent withdrawals, it took THORFi users by surprise – and seemed to contradict the marketing message around decentralization. “We were told it was decentralized, and you wake up one morning and read an article that said ‘This guy, JP, had an admin mimir,'” Treat says, referring to Thorbjornsen, “and I’m like, ‘What the fuck is an admin mimir?'”
