NEAR Intents Hit by $3.8 Million Exploit
Cross-chain trading platform NEAR Intents has paused services after a bug in its Omni system led to a $3.8 million exploit, with the project pledging to fully reimburse affected users.
NEAR Intents suffered a security exploit on Thursday that resulted in approximately $3.8 million in losses. The incident forced the platform to pause services and restrict deposits and withdrawals across several blockchains.
The project identified the cause as a bug involving its Omni deposit and withdrawal system and its smart contract. While the vulnerability has been patched, the platform noted that deposits and withdrawals on various networks would remain unavailable for a longer period while final fixes are implemented.
The affected networks include BNB Smart Chain, Polygon, TON, Optimism, Avalanche, Stellar, Monad, X Layer, ADI, Scroll, and Plasma. The project has pledged to reimburse all affected funds in full.
Blockchain investigator ZachXBT reported that the exploit originated from irregular withdrawals from a BNB Chain hot wallet associated with the platform. The stolen assets were reportedly sent to the KuCoin exchange and converted into bitcoin.
NEAR Intents has reported the incident to law enforcement and is currently working with security and blockchain analytics firms to trace the funds. The platform stated that the vulnerability was limited to its cross-chain infrastructure and did not involve the underlying NEAR Protocol blockchain.
NEAR, the native token associated with the NEAR Intents ecosystem, was down about 6% over the 24-hour period following the news. The incident adds to a series of security breaches across the industry this year, including recent exploits involving Bitget, Liquid Network, Drift, and Kelp.
