Multichain transaction protocol NEAR Intents halted its services today after it was hacked for $3.8 million via an exploit of its Omni deposit and withdrawal infrastructure.
It revealed the security incident today at 2pm GMT+1 and claimed that its services would resume within the hour after it was able to patch the “contract-side vulnerability.”
The protocol noted, however, that the deposits and withdrawals across networks BSC, Polygon, TON, Optimism, Avalanche, Stellar, Monad, LayerX, Adi, Scroll, and Plasma, would remain unavailable until Omni infrastructure is patched.
Read more: THORChain refuses to block Bitget funds, despite pausing after own hack
Crypto sleuth ZachXBT also documented the exploit, claiming that NEAR Intents’ BSC hot wallet experienced irregular outflows before the transactions stopped processing.
He said, “The funds were immediately transferred to Kucoin and bridged to Bitcoin.”
The price of NEAR Protocol’s token NEAR fell from $5.1 to $4.79 in the minutes following the disclosure.
NEAR Intents helped stop stolen Bitget funds
Earlier this month, centralised crypto exchange Bitget was hacked for over $380 million in an attack likely stemming from North Korea.
NEAR Intent’s General Manager, Alex Shevchenko, revealed that $50 million worth of Bitget funds tried to pass through the protocol.
Shevchenko says it froze $503,000 and only $166,000 was able to pass. The rest “went to other providers.”
Protocols like THORChain, meanwhile, took a more hands-off approach when Bitget funds were being moved.
Bitget’s CEO pleaded for the protocol to refuse service to the people moving the hacked funds but THORChain refused, claiming that it is “decentralized and permissionless.”
It’s worth noting that it paused its services earlier this year when it was hacked for $10 million.
The freezing of Bitget’s funds and today’s pause in services have sparked a debate among crypto users who are questioning just how decentralized NEAR Intents is.
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