The cross-chain protocol says its monitoring and blocking system prevented large laundering attempts after Bitget’s $387.5M exploit, while other protocols and token issuers took different approaches to freezing funds.
NEAR Intents’ SHIELD system identified and blocked over $50 million in attempted cross-chain transfers tied to the Sept. 24 Bitget exploit; $503,000 was frozen during execution and about $166,000 slipped through.
NEAR Intents will waive the 5% bounty and the additional 5% recovery fee offered by Bitget so more funds can be returned, and says frozen assets will be returned through appropriate legal processes.
Related reporting shows NEAR Intents was later targeted in a separate exploit that resulted in a $3.8 million loss days after its involvement with the Bitget incident.
On Sept. 24 Bitget suffered a security breach that sent $387.5 million to attacker-controlled addresses. NEAR Intents, a cross-chain swapping protocol, says its SHIELD monitoring system detected and blocked more than $50 million in attempted transfers tied to those attacker wallets as funds moved across chains to Ethereum.
Concrete numbers reported by NEAR Intents' general manager Alex Shevchenko: SHIELD blocked over $50 million in attempted transfers, froze $503,000 during execution, and around $166,000 in suspected stolen funds passed through its infrastructure.
Stablecoin issuers Circle and Tether blacklisted a wallet linked to the Bitget exploiter and froze $318,013 in USDT and USDC, according to onchain data cited in reporting. Bitget's CEO publicly called on THORChain to refuse services to addresses tied to the attack.
THORChain's response differed: it said it does not implement selective freezes and that its emergency halts are broad security mechanisms rather than targeted censorship of specific funds or swaps.
The Bitget incident highlights a tension within permissionless finance: maintaining open access versus taking targeted action to block illicit flows. NEAR Intents' stance is that protocol designers make choices about permitted behavior and that refusing to process stolen assets is a valid policy. THORChain's stance emphasizes non-selective protocol behavior even when external parties request freezes.
Related reporting indicates that days later NEAR Intents itself was exploited, with a separate incident resulting in a $3.8 million loss via a deposit/withdrawal bug. NEAR Intents said it would compensate affected users. These follow-up reports show the operational and security risks that can follow high-profile intervention in laundering cases.
NEAR Intents used its SHIELD system to stop large attempted transfers it linked to the Bitget hack, waived recovery bounties to maximize returned funds, and framed this as a deliberate design choice. Other major actors took different approaches: Circle and Tether blacklisted a wallet, while THORChain maintained a non-selective policy. Follow-up developments included a separate exploit that affected NEAR Intents days later.
Following Bitget’s $387.5 million hack, attackers attempted to move more than $50 million through Near Intents, but its SHIELD security system detected the activity and prevented most of the attempted transfers. Just $166,000 slipped through, while another $503,000 was frozen mid-execution. Aurora co-founder Alex Shevc
NEAR Intents says it blocked over $50 million in Bitget-linked transfers as THORChain defended its policy against selective freezes.
NEAR Intents halted its services today after the protocol was hacked for $3.8M via a deposit/withdrawal exploit. The post NEAR Intents hacked days after freezing stolen Bitget funds appeared first on Protos .
The platform said it will compensate users affected by the hack, which stemmed from a bug that affected deposits and withdrawals. Cross-chain protocol NEAR Intents reported a security breach that resulted in the loss of $3.8 million in user funds. In a Thursday X post, the protocol said that the incident was the result
In this issue: Xinyue Chen, Mary Haasdyk Vooys, Henrike Lendowski, Glenda Sburelin, Adam Niklewicz, Melcher Oosterman, Ben Pearce, Susie Ang, Matt Rota, Anagh Banerjee.
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