You are mistaken. Thunderbolt alternate mode does not require any additional pins, it does require special cabling though. Most Thunderbolt cables are not capab

You are mistaken. Thunderbolt alternate mode does not require any additional pins, it does require special cabling though. Most Thunderbolt cables are not capable of any 5-10(-20) gbps USB but they are still using the exact same connector. USB 4 will change this in that Thunderbolt cables will now be compatible with everything. The only thing you possibly could think of is VirtualLink which repurposed the existing USB 2.0 pins for two more high speed lanes but even that is using the exact same physical connector.