NEAR Intents Suffers $3.8M Exploit, Promises Full Reimbursement

NEAR Intents, a cross-chain swap layer in the orbit of the NEAR protocol, suffered a $3.8 million exploit on October 1, 2026. The incident occurred when irregular withdrawals flowed out through a hot wallet of the layer, causing the damage.

The team publicly acknowledged the incident, closed the affected point in the smart contract, and suspended deposits and withdrawals on several connected networks. Core operations were reported to resume quickly, but deposits and withdrawals remained down for longer.

The project described the cause as a fault in the way the Omni system for deposits and withdrawals interacted with the NEAR Intents smart contract. The Omni system is the layer that accepts deposits from an external blockchain and releases withdrawals back to it.

The team has promised to reimburse affected funds in full, but no timetable was named. This creates a situation where users are left with an uncertain claim against the project, rather than a supervised institution with deposit protection.