- NEAR Intents halted services after a $3.8 million exploit of its Omni deposit and withdrawal infrastructure.
- The protocol patched the vulnerability within an hour, but deposits and withdrawals across multiple networks remain unavailable.
- Blockchain sleuth ZachXBT documented irregular outflows from the BSC hot wallet, with funds moved to KuCoin and bridged to Bitcoin.
- NEAR token price dropped from $5.10 to $4.79 in minutes after the disclosure.
- The incident reignites debate about NEAR Intents‘ decentralization, following its recent freezing of $503,000 from the Bitget hack.
NEAR Intents, a multichain transaction protocol, halted its services today after being hacked for $3.8 million via an exploit of its Omni deposit and withdrawal infrastructure. The team disclosed the incident at 2pm GMT+1 and claimed services would resume within the hour after patching the “contract-side vulnerability.”
However, the protocol noted that deposits and withdrawals across networks including BSC, Polygon, TON, Optimism, Avalanche, Stellar, Monad, and others would remain unavailable until Omni infrastructure is fully patched. Crypto sleuth ZachXBT documented that the BSC hot wallet experienced irregular outflows, stating, “The funds were immediately transferred to Kucoin and bridged to Bitcoin.”
Consequently, the price of NEAR Protocol’s token fell from $5.10 to $4.79 in the minutes following the disclosure. This breach comes just weeks after NEAR Intents played a role in the aftermath of a $380 million hack on centralized exchange Bitget.
Earlier in September, NEAR Intents General Manager Alex Shevchenko revealed that $50 million in stolen Bitget funds attempted to pass through the protocol. Shevchenko said it froze $503,000 and only $166,000 got through, while the rest went to other providers.
Meanwhile, protocols like THORChain refused to block Bitget funds, citing their decentralized and permissionless nature. The freezing of Bitget funds and today’s pause in services have sparked a debate among crypto users questioning just how decentralized NEAR Intents truly is.
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