NEAR Intents Issues 48-Hour Ultimatum to Attacker Following $3.8M Exploit

NEAR Intents has issued a 48-hour deadline for the return of approximately $3.8 million stolen during an exploit on October 1, 2026. The protocol provided three specific addresses for the funds to be returned as it attempts to recover the assets.

The exploit targeted a treasury contract on BNB Chain, primarily draining USDT. According to the protocol, the incident stemmed from a bug in the communication between the Omni deposit-and-withdrawal infrastructure and its smart contracts.

The team halted services upon detecting the breach and patched the flaw within an hour. While core services have since resumed, some cross-chain features remained offline for additional repairs.

Investigators have traced the stolen funds to the centralized exchange KuCoin, where they were converted into Bitcoin. NEAR Intents is currently working with law enforcement and blockchain analytics firms to track the assets.

The protocol has committed to fully compensating all users impacted by the incident. This ultimatum represents a shift in strategy, moving from initial damage control to direct pressure on the attacker.

The NEAR token price fell between 6% and 10% following the announcement. This market reaction occurred despite the exploit being isolated to the NEAR Intents infrastructure, with the underlying NEAR Protocol and other applications remaining unaffected.

NEAR Intents previously blocked suspicious transactions related to a prior hack. This latest incident occurs as the broader ecosystem sees increased adoption and the recent launch of a US spot NEAR ETF.