NEAR Intents Halted by $3.8M Exploit, Reimbursement Promised

A security exploit of over $3.8 million was confirmed by NEAR Intents, a cross-chain swap layer, on October 1, 2026. The incident occurred when irregular withdrawals flowed out through a hot wallet, causing the damage.

The team acknowledged the incident and closed the affected point in the smart contract, suspending deposits and withdrawals on eleven connected networks, including BNB Smart Chain, Polygon, and TON.

Reimbursement of all affected funds has been promised, but no date has been given. The price of NEAR was $4.90 on the afternoon of October 1, 2026, 6.96 percent below the previous day, and up 7.66 percent over the week.

The NEAR Intents swap layer takes in an intention, such as swapping a token on one blockchain for a token on another, and lets service providers compete to execute it. The affected layer is responsible for deposits and withdrawals, and the fault sat between the Omni bridge and the Intents contract.