NEAR Intents Loses $3.8M in Exploit Days After Helping Block $50M from Bitget Hack

Cross-chain protocol NEAR Intents reported a security exploit resulting in the loss of approximately $3.8 million in user funds. In a Thursday X post, the platform attributed the incident to a "bug in the Omni deposit and withdrawal infrastructure interaction with NEAR Intents smart contract," which allowed attackers to drain funds from the protocol. The vulnerability was exploited despite NEAR Intents recently assisting Bitget in responding to its own $388 million security breach.

NEAR stated it would fully compensate affected users and confirmed that the "contract-side vulnerability has been patched" to prevent similar attacks. The protocol also reported the incident to law enforcement and is working with blockchain analytics partners to trace the stolen funds. According to blockchain investigator ZachXBT, the proceeds were transferred to the KuCoin exchange and bridged to Bitcoin. At the time of publication, the identity behind the attack remained unknown.

The breach followed NEAR Intents' role in mitigating damage from the Bitget hack, where the protocol reported blocking $50 million and freezing more than $500,000 in funds tied to the attack. Bitget CEO Gracy Chen speculated that North Korean hackers may have been responsible for that incident. The back-to-back exploits highlight growing cybersecurity challenges across the crypto industry, with Q3 crypto security losses now surpassing $1 billion according to recent reporting.