NEAR Intents Recovers Full $3.8M After 48-Hour Ultimatum

NEAR Intents has recovered the full $3.8 million stolen in a Thursday security breach, according to general manager Alex Shevchenko. In a Friday post on X, Shevchenko said the funds from the hack were returned in full. He added that the investigation is being stopped and urged people to use bug bounties rather than disrupt services.

The recovery followed a public ultimatum. Cointelegraph reported on Friday that NEAR Intents had identified the person behind the breach and gave them 48 hours to return the funds under responsible disclosure. Shevchenko announced the complete return later that day.

NEAR Intents had paused its services after detecting a bug in the interaction between Omni’s deposit and withdrawal infrastructure and the NEAR Intents smart contract. A preliminary investigation by NEAR found that $3.8 million in user funds had been taken. The project also pledged to compensate affected users in full.

Blockchain investigator ZachXBT said the funds from the incident were moved to the KuCoin exchange and bridged to Bitcoin. With the money returned, NEAR Intents said it is ending its investigation. Cointelegraph had previously reported on the identification of the hacker and the 48-hour deadline.