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Two questions come up constantly from people new to THORChain. Do you need $RUNE to swap? And isn't it just a governance token? The answer to both is no, and understanding why tells you everything about how the protocol actually works. You don't need $RUNE to swap. You send $BTC , you receive $ETH , and $RUNE never touches your wallet. What's happening underneath is that every pool on THORChain is paired with $RUNE, so the protocol routes your swap through it automatically. It's the plumbing, not something you interact with. As for governance, $RUNE works nothing like that. Holding it gives you no vote. A vote belongs to a node operator, one per node, earned by bonding a large amount of $RUNE to secure the network. You don't buy influence. You put up capital, take on responsibility, and the vote comes with the job. What $RUNE actually does: it connects every pool, secures the network through bonded capital, and pays nodes and LPs from real swap fees. Almost any other crypto could remove its token tomorrow and the network would keep running. THORChain couldn't.