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Cross-chain platform blocks Bitget hacker over $50 million in money laundering
NEAR Intents platform's general manager Alex Shevchenko stated in a long post on X on September 28 that after the Bitget hack, the attackers attempted to transfer more than $50 million via NEAR Intents. In the end, only about $166,000 completed the exchange, while another $503,000 was frozen during transaction execution. Attackers tried to move over $50 million, but only $166,000 got through Shevchenko said Bitget was hacked on September 24, and he estimated that roughly $387.5 million in funds were stolen, with a significant portion involving cross-chain transfers, mainly exchanged into ETH on Ethereum. Previous reports covered Bitget restoring withdrawals in stages and the methods used in the intrusion. According to Shevchenko, NEAR Intents' SHIELD system detected a money-laundering attempt involving more than $50 million. This figure already excludes repeated attempts and rejected funds, which were later sent to other service providers. The frozen $503,000 remains in a restricted status, pending legal and recovery procedures. He also noted that all figures in the post are estimates and rounded, and the error in the actual values should not exceed 10%. SHIELD system: refuses quotes, or halts mid-execution Shevchenko said that under normal circumstances NEAR Intents processes more than $100 million worth of cross-chain transaction volume per day. This time, only a very small proportion of the hacker funds flowed through the platform, due to SHIELD. He explained that SHIELD is NEAR Intents' risk intelligence layer. It automatically detects anomalies in fund flows, integrates transaction monitoring (KYT) with information from intelligence providers, independent researchers, enterprises, and large centralized operators, and then decides how to handle a transaction. When transactions related to the hacking incident are identified, the protocol does not respond with a quote; if execution has already started, it will stop mid-way. “No permission doesn’t mean neutrality,” NEAR Intents gives up the Bitget bounty Shevchenko wrote: “We believe in building decentralized, permissionless systems, but permissionless doesn’t mean neutral. The people who build these systems will decide what the protocol can do. Refusing to help launder stolen assets is one of our choices.” He mentioned that Bitget previously set a bounty of 5% to freeze the hacker funds, and another 5% for recovering the funds. NEAR Intents decided to forgo this bounty, so that Bitget can recover the stolen funds as much as possible, and asked Bitget to contact through legal and law-enforcement channels to handle the frozen funds in accordance with the law. CoinDesk reported that NEAR Intents' approach differs from THORChain's refusal to block the hacker addresses associated with Bitget, and it has also sparked discussion about whether NEAR Intents can still claim to be “permissionless.” This article Cross-chain platform blocks Bitget hacker over $50 million in money laundering first appeared on .
Cross-chain platform blocks Bitget hacker over $50 million in money laundering
NEAR Intents platform's general manager Alex Shevchenko stated in a long post on X on September 28 that after the Bitget hack, the attackers attempted to transfer more than $50 million via NEAR Intents. In the end, only about $166,000 completed the exchange, while another $503,000 was frozen during transaction execution. Attackers tried to move over $50 million, but only $166,000 got through Shevchenko said Bitget was hacked on September 24, and he estimated that roughly $387.5 million in funds were stolen, with a significant portion involving cross-chain transfers, mainly exchanged into ETH on Ethereum. Previous reports covered Bitget restoring withdrawals in stages and the methods used in the intrusion. According to Shevchenko, NEAR Intents' SHIELD system detected a money-laundering attempt involving more than $50 million. This figure already excludes repeated attempts and rejected funds, which were later sent to other service providers. The frozen $503,000 remains in a restricted status, pending legal and recovery procedures. He also noted that all figures in the post are estimates and rounded, and the error in the actual values should not exceed 10%. SHIELD system: refuses quotes, or halts mid-execution Shevchenko said that under normal circumstances NEAR Intents processes more than $100 million worth of cross-chain transaction volume per day. This time, only a very small proportion of the hacker funds flowed through the platform, due to SHIELD. He explained that SHIELD is NEAR Intents' risk intelligence layer. It automatically detects anomalies in fund flows, integrates transaction monitoring (KYT) with information from intelligence providers, independent researchers, enterprises, and large centralized operators, and then decides how to handle a transaction. When transactions related to the hacking incident are identified, the protocol does not respond with a quote; if execution has already started, it will stop mid-way. “No permission doesn’t mean neutrality,” NEAR Intents gives up the Bitget bounty Shevchenko wrote: “We believe in building decentralized, permissionless systems, but permissionless doesn’t mean neutral. The people who build these systems will decide what the protocol can do. Refusing to help launder stolen assets is one of our choices.” He mentioned that Bitget previously set a bounty of 5% to freeze the hacker funds, and another 5% for recovering the funds. NEAR Intents decided to forgo this bounty, so that Bitget can recover the stolen funds as much as possible, and asked Bitget to contact through legal and law-enforcement channels to handle the frozen funds in accordance with the law. CoinDesk reported that NEAR Intents' approach differs from THORChain's refusal to block the hacker addresses associated with Bitget, and it has also sparked discussion about whether NEAR Intents can still claim to be “permissionless.” This article Cross-chain platform blocks Bitget hacker over $50 million in money laundering first appeared on .
