NEAR Intents Recovers Full $3.8M After 48-Hour Ultimatum to Hacker

NEAR Intents has recovered the full $3.8 million stolen during a security breach after identifying the exploiter and issuing a 48-hour ultimatum under its responsible disclosure policy. General manager Alex Shevchenko confirmed on Friday that the funds were returned in full, writing on X: "The funds from the $3.8M NEAR Intents hack were sent back in full. We are stopping the investigation. Please use bug bounties instead of disrupting the services."

The breach originated from a bug in the Omni deposit and withdrawal infrastructure's interaction with NEAR Intents smart contracts. NEAR paused services after detecting the vulnerability and pledged to compensate affected users in full. Blockchain investigator ZachXBT traced the stolen funds to the KuCoin exchange before they were bridged to Bitcoin.

The successful recovery highlights the effectiveness of public identification and time-bound ultimatums in pressuring exploiters to return stolen assets. NEAR Intents has urged would-be hackers to use its bug bounty program rather than target its infrastructure, reinforcing industry calls for white-hat disclosure channels as a first line of defense against protocol-level exploits.