Crypto's Permissionless Idealism Put to the Test in $387.7 Million Hack
A $387.7 million hack of cryptocurrency exchange BitGet has exposed a growing divide in the crypto industry over the extent to which permissionless systems should prevent illicit transactions.
The dispute centers around how cross-chain protocols THORChain and NEAR Intents handled funds stolen in the BitGet hack. BitGet CEO Gracy Chen urged THORChain to block addresses linked to the attacker, but the protocol declined, citing its permissionless design.
THORChain developer Boone Wheeler argued that a truly permissionless protocol cannot intervene based on the provenance of funds, as doing so would make it permissioned. However, NEAR Intents took a different approach, using its automated SHIELD security system to block attempted flows linked to the hack and prevent over $503,000 in stolen funds from passing through.
The debate highlights a practical distinction between decentralized infrastructure and applications operating on top of it. While THORChain maintains that it has no mechanism to screen individual addresses or transactions, NEAR argues that automated controls can protect users and the wider ecosystem without relying on manual intervention by a compliance team.