In Brief:
- A security breach costing roughly $3.8 million forced NEAR Intents to halt its services.
- The root cause was a bug in the Omni deposit and withdrawal infrastructure, which enabled unauthorized withdrawals from a BNB Chain hot wallet.
- NEAR Intents has pledged to cover the losses, and users will not need to do anything to be compensated.
Security breach forces NEAR Intents offline
On October 1, NEAR Intents put its services on hold after finding a security breach that had siphoned off about $3.8 million. The team traced the problem to a bug in the way its Omni infrastructure interacted with the NEAR Intents smart contract, which opened the door to unauthorized withdrawals.
The team said: “The preliminary report indicates the total loss of approximately $3.8M. These funds will be compensated in full.” The flaw in the contract has now been patched, and NEAR Intents expected to restart operations shortly after making the announcement.
Some networks stay on pause
Part of NEAR Intents came back online, but deposits and withdrawals on 11 networks stayed unavailable for roughly another 12 hours while the team finished infrastructure fixes. BSC, Polygon, Avalanche, and others were among the affected networks.
Users with assets on those chains inside the NEAR ecosystem still had options. When the service came back, they will be able to swap those assets into other tokens, although withdrawals to the impacted chains will stay paused.
Investigators follow the money
On-chain investigator ZachXBT reported that the stolen funds moved quickly. They were sent to KuCoin and then bridged to Bitcoin. Because the funds passed through a centralized exchange, they may be easier to track, since exchanges can freeze accounts and work with law enforcement.
NEAR Intents has reported the incident to law enforcement and is working with security partners to trace the funds. The team plans to publish a detailed report in the coming days.
How the market responded
The NEAR token fell sharply right after the announcement, losing 7.5 percent and hitting a low of $4.76 before recovering slightly. The relatively small size of the loss and the pledge of full compensation helped limit the wider market fallout.
Users will not have to do anything to get their lost funds back. The upcoming report is expected to explain how the compensation process will work.
What NEAR Intents does
NEAR Intents is a cross-chain trading protocol that makes it easier to swap assets between networks. Users state their intent to make a swap, and competing solvers bid to fill the request. Transaction volume has climbed sharply and passed $20 billion as of June 3, 2026.
That fast growth also adds complexity. Every new connection between blockchains is another place where bugs can appear. This incident shows that the risk often sits in the infrastructure rather than in the core application.
Cross-chain exploits draw more concern
This breach is the latest in a run of cross-chain exploits over the past few weeks. The Sandbox SAND $0.07681 ▲ +60.9% (official site) earlier reported losing around $14.7 million, and crypto casino Duelbits lost $7 million because of weaknesses in its hot wallets.
NEAR Intents was quick to promise full compensation. This reflects a growing expectation that major platforms will pay for losses out of their treasuries to keep users’ trust.
What this means for web3 gaming
Services such as NEAR Intents are meant to make it easier to move assets around in web3 gaming. Breaches like this one, however, expose the risks that come with custody and bridge infrastructure. They are a reminder for studios to work with partners that respond quickly, and for players to limit balances on cross-chain services.