NEAR Intents Exploit Drains $3.8 Million, Token Slips 8.6%

A cross-chain swapping service built on NEAR Protocol, NEAR Intents, saw roughly $3.8 million taken by an attacker on Thursday. The NEAR token dropped 8.6% within hours, though the main blockchain itself was not cited as the target.

Two days earlier, Bitwise launched the first US spot NEAR ETF. Bitwise had partly marketed that fund on NEAR Intents, which it reports has handled more than $32 billion in swaps.

Details Behind the NEAR Intents Exploit

NEAR Intents allows users to exchange tokens from one blockchain for those on another. Users specify the deal they want, and external market makers compete to fulfil it.

According to the team, a software flaw was responsible for the loss. The issue arose in the way its Omni deposit and withdrawal setup interacted with the NEAR Intents smart contract — the automated code that logs each swap.

Earlier today NEAR Intents services were stopped after a security incident was detected. The incident was caused by a bug in the Omni deposit and withdrawal infrastructure interaction with NEAR Intents smart contract.

The preliminary report indicates the total loss of…

— NEAR Intents (@near_intents) October 1, 2026

On-chain sleuth ZachXBT pointed out the breach, noting that the service's hot wallet on BNB Chain — an online wallet used to process withdrawals — showed several unusual outflows before transactions were halted.

The stolen assets were sent directly to crypto exchange KuCoin and swapped into Bitcoin (BTC), ZachXBT reported.

NEAR Intents stated it has fixed the contract bug and will reimburse all impacted users in full. Law enforcement has also been notified.

Is NEAR Protocol Safe Following the $3.8 Million Theft?

Deposit and withdrawal services remain suspended for roughly 12 more hours across 11 networks, including BNB Chain, Polygon, TON, Optimism, Avalanche, Stellar, Monad, X Layer, ADI, Scroll, and Plasma.

Neither the official statement nor ZachXBT’s alert mentions any theft from the NEAR blockchain itself. Both focus on the swap service’s bridge and its BNB Chain wallet.

Users with assets from the paused chains within NEAR Intents can still convert them into other tokens once core operations restart, the team said.

Meanwhile, NEAR traded at $4.92 at press time, with a market cap near $6.4 billion. The token had surged around 175% in September ahead of the Bitwise NEAR ETF debut.

This is the second major breach in the NEAR ecosystem this year, following Rhea Finance’s $7.6 million loss in April. NEAR Intents has pledged to release a full technical report in the days ahead.