NEAR Blocks $50M in Attempted Transfers Tied to Bitget Hack

NEAR Intents claimed it blocked over $50 million in attempted transfers tied to the Bitget hack. The attack on Thursday resulted in stolen funds of around $387.5 million from Bitget, with a significant portion moving across chains to Ethereum.

Alex Shevchenko, general manager of NEAR Intents, stated that its SHIELD system detected and blocked more than $50 million in attempted transfers. The system also managed to freeze $503,000 in funds during execution, while around $166,000 in suspected stolen funds passed through.

Shevchenko argued that permissionless systems do not necessarily have to be neutral and can make choices about what those protocols enable. Refusing to help launder stolen assets is one of NEAR Intents' choices, as Shevchenko stated.

Near Intents will forego the 5% bounty offered by Bitget for freezing attacker funds and an additional 5% for their recovery, allowing more funds to be returned to Bitget. The frozen funds would be returned through an appropriate legal process.