NEAR Intents Freezes $503K Linked to Bitget Hacker Amid Censorship Debate

The recent hacking incident on Bitget has sparked debate over the platform's promise to provide a 'permissionless and censorship-resistant' service. In response, NEAR Intents froze approximately $503,000 linked to the attacker, which attempted to move more than $50 million in funds through their cross-chain swap service.

The SHIELD system on NEAR Intents rejected most of these attempts, but around $166,000 passed through the service. The frozen amount will be held until legal proceedings and efforts to recover the funds are complete.

NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin defended the decision, stating that not needing permission to hold assets on the blockchain does not mean every application must accept every transaction. He emphasized that the controls applied to NEAR Intents' swap service do not give it authority over all NEAR wallets.