NEAR Intents briefly halted operations after an attacker exploited a vulnerability and took approximately $3.8 million, according to reporting from Decrypt. The cross-chain swap service identified the issue, patched the affected contract-side component and restored core operations in roughly an hour.
The incident nevertheless affected NEAR’s market performance. The NEAR token fell by nearly 9% to $4.86 in the trading snapshot cited by Decrypt, while the Bitwise NEAR ETF dropped more than 7%. The exchange-traded fund had launched only two days earlier, making the breach an immediate test for a product whose investment case had highlighted NEAR Intents and the network’s growth.
How the exploit unfolded
The weakness was located in the part of NEAR Intents responsible for moving funds into and out of the service and communicating with the main contract that holds users’ assets. Blockchain investigator ZachXBT traced the stolen funds to KuCoin, where they were converted into bitcoin. The NEAR Intents team said it had reported the matter to law enforcement and would publish a complete report.
NEAR Intents allows users to swap digital assets across different blockchains, including through a private transaction process. According to the source material, it had processed more than $30 billion in swaps across 35 networks, giving the incident significance beyond the amount directly taken.
Core services returned after about an hour once the contract-side vulnerability had been fixed. Deposits and withdrawals on 11 networks, including BNB Chain, Polygon and Optimism, remained unavailable for another 12 hours while additional remedial work was completed.
The team also committed to reimbursing every affected user in full. That promise, together with the rapid shutdown and repair, shaped the debate over whether the incident could ultimately be viewed as a comparatively well-managed security failure rather than a prolonged crisis.
Why the response matters
Crypto hacks can vary widely in both scale and handling. The Decrypt report contrasts the NEAR Intents episode with much larger or more disruptive incidents, including an exploit at Kelp DAO involving hundreds of millions of dollars and the loss of $387.5 million at Bitget, which froze withdrawals for four days.
Against that backdrop, NEAR Intents’ response was notably contained: the service was stopped, the vulnerability was fixed, operations resumed quickly, the issue was disclosed publicly and law enforcement was contacted. The company’s commitment to make users whole also limits the direct financial burden for those affected, although the incident still exposes the risks involved in infrastructure that connects assets across multiple blockchain networks.
Some market participants have described the episode as a “bullish hack,” a term used for an exploit in which the damage is limited and the team’s response demonstrates the strength of its controls. Whether the NEAR incident eventually earns that description remains uncertain. The immediate market reaction was negative, with both the token and the newly launched ETF declining.
For the project, the episode creates a tension between operational resilience and confidence in security. A fast recovery can show that emergency procedures work, but the vulnerability also highlights how a weakness in the money-movement layer can affect users and market sentiment even when the stolen amount is relatively contained compared with other major crypto exploits.
Market picture
Moneyiar market data recorded at 09:29 on October 3, 2026, showed NEAR Protocol at $4.6543153277, down 5.35% over 24 hours and 4.42% over seven days. Other assets in the supplied data were mixed:
- Ethereum Name Service was at $6.7256501537, down 4.36% in 24 hours and 5.04% over seven days.
- Compound was at $24.6444652029, up 0.47% in 24 hours and 3.47% over seven days.
- Espresso was at $0.1014353914, down 2.56% in 24 hours but up 1.33% over seven days.
The broader crypto market snapshot in the source showed major tokens rising between 2% and 4% as oil and bond markets cooled. Bitcoin was reported at $86,400, up 3%, while ether gained 2% to $2,740 and Solana rose 3% to $122. The Bitcoin exchange-traded funds recorded $103 million in net inflows on Thursday, while ether ETFs had $55 million in outflows and Solana ETFs had $1.1 million in outflows.
The contrasting moves underline the event’s specific impact: broader crypto assets were stronger in the cited market session, while NEAR faced selling pressure after the exploit. The project’s next full report is expected to provide more detail on the vulnerability, the affected users and the measures being taken to prevent a repeat.
