NEAR Intents Blocked $50M Tied to Bitget Hackers

NEAR Intents said it blocked more than $50 million in attempted transfers linked to the Bitget hack. 

Attackers stole $387.5 million from Bitget on Thursday. A significant portion of these funds moved across chains to Ethereum, according to Alex Shevchenko, general manager of NEAR Intents, a protocol that lets users swap crypto assets across blockchains. 

Shevchenko said its SHIELD system detected and blocked more than $50 million in attempted transfers, which subsequently went to other providers. It managed to freeze $503,000 in funds during execution, while around $166,000 in suspected stolen funds passed through.

The post came as THORChain faced calls to block addresses linked to the attack, underscoring a tension that permissionless crypto protocols face — offering open access while seeking to curb illicit activity. 

Shevchenko argued that permissionless systems do not necessarily have to be neutral. “The people who build these systems make choices about what those protocols enable. Refusing to help launder stolen assets is one of ours,” Shevchenko said.

“Property rights are fundamental to functioning markets. A financial system where stealing an asset gives you an unrestricted right to monetize it isn’t a freer system. It is simply a system that protects the thief. Such systems cannot become the economic backbone of the future,” he added.

NEAR Intents said it will forego the 5% bounty offered by Bitget for freezing attacker funds and an additional 5% for their recovery, allowing more funds to be returned to Bitget. Shevchenko said the frozen funds would be returned through an appropriate legal process. 

Related: Bitget CEO says $388M hack exploited third-party security vulnerability

The move comes after Circle and Tether blacklisted a wallet linked to the Bitget exploiter on Friday, freezing $318,013 of USDt (USDT) and USDC (USDC), according to onchain data.

Bitget CEO Gracy Chen on Friday also called on THORChain, a decentralized protocol for swapping assets between blockchains, to refuse services to addresses linked to the attack. 

THORChain, however, said it doesn’t censor by design, and that while it has halted the network in the past, this is an emergency security mechanism that affects the protocol broadly and “is not a selective freeze of specific funds or an individual swap.” 

Shevchenko said NEAR Intents would actively fight the laundering of hacked funds. 

“Crypto cannot simultaneously demand recognition of digital property rights and build infrastructure optimized for monetizing stolen property,” he said.

Magazine: Asia dominates Crypto Adoption Index, Bitget’s $352M hack: Asia Express