NEAR Intents learns the hard way that helping heroes attracts villains 🎯

NEAR Intents, a cross-chain swapping protocol that has processed more than $30 billion in trades across 35 blockchains, halted services on Thursday after an attacker drained approximately $3.8 million in user funds. The team attributed the breach to a flaw in the interaction between its Omni deposit and withdrawal infrastructure and the NEAR Intents smart contract. "Earlier today NEAR Intents services were stopped after a security incident was detected. The incident was caused by a bug in the Omni deposit and withdrawal infrastructure interaction with NEAR Intents smart contract," the protocol posted on X. "The incident has been reported to law enforcement, and we are working with security and blockchain analytics partners to trace the funds and pursue recovery."

The protocol said the vulnerability has been remediated and that core services should resume within roughly one hour, though deposits and withdrawals on 11 networks, including BNB Chain, Polygon and Optimism, would remain suspended for approximately 12 more hours while Omni fixes are completed. NEAR Intents pledged that the lost funds "will be compensated in full" and stated a detailed report would be published in the coming days. The identity of the attacker and the affected users have not been disclosed.

The exploit came two days after NEAR Intents reported blocking a $50 million swap attempt and freezing more than $500,000 linked to the $388 million security breach at the Bitget exchange. Bitget CEO Gracy Chen and blockchain analytics firm Elliptic have pointed to North Korean hackers as the likely culprits behind that incident, though no confirmation has been issued. Blockchain investigator ZachXBT reported that the funds from the NEAR Intents exploit were transferred to the KuCoin exchange and bridged to Bitcoin. It remains unconfirmed whether the two incidents are connected.

The breach landed against a backdrop of growing institutional interest in the NEAR network. Bitwise's Near ETF had launched two days earlier, and $NEAR fell 8.93% to $4.86 on the day of the attack, with the ETF shares dropping more than 7%. Bitwise first filed paperwork for the fund in April 2025, when $NEAR traded at $2.61. The incident adds to a tally of Q3 crypto security losses now exceeding $1 billion, with cross-chain infrastructure once again emerging as a primary target following events such as the 2022 Harmony bridge hack, in which approximately $100 million was lost.