NEAR Intents Gives Hacker 48 Hours to Return $3.8M

NEAR Intents, a cross-chain protocol within the NEAR Protocol ecosystem, has identified the person responsible for a $3.8 million loss. The general manager of NEAR Intents, Alex Shevchenko, gave the individual 48 hours to return the funds, stating that this is the final chance to settle the matter under responsible disclosure.

Shevchenko posted the demand on October 2, providing three return addresses for the alleged hacker to send the stolen funds back to. The addresses are for Bitcoin, BNB Chain and Ethereum, and Solana.

NEAR Intents had previously paused services on October 1 after detecting a security incident. The project attributed the cause to a bug in the Omni deposit and withdrawal infrastructure interaction with the NEAR Intents smart contract. The preliminary loss was estimated at approximately $3.8 million, and NEAR Intents pledged to compensate the affected investors in full.

The project is working with security and blockchain analytics partners to trace the funds and pursue recovery. A detailed report on the incident is expected to be shared publicly in the following days.