NEAR Intents Hacker Returns Full $3.8 Million Within 24 Hours of Being Named

The attacker behind the $3.8 million NEAR Intents exploit has sent back the entire amount, and NEAR has ended its investigation. The return came within 24 hours of the hacker being publicly named. A day earlier, general manager Alex Shevchenko had warned that the team knew who was responsible and offered a 48-hour window to return the money under a responsible disclosure arrangement. He also posted three wallet addresses for repayment in Bitcoin, BNB or Solana, saying the offer would expire once the deadline passed.

What Caused the NEAR Intents Hack

The breach struck on Thursday, when the protocol paused services after finding a bug in how the Omni deposit and withdrawal infrastructure interacts with the NEAR Intents smart contract. Early findings confirmed that $3.8 million in user funds had been stolen. Blockchain investigator ZachXBT reported that the assets were sent to the KuCoin exchange and then bridged to Bitcoin.

User Compensation and Case Closed

NEAR had pledged to reimburse every affected user in full, and the recovered funds now settle the loss. With the money back, the team has closed the case.