NEAR Intents, a cross-chain swap protocol built on NEAR Protocol, suspended services on Thursday after an exploit led to losses of approximately $3.8 million, according to early reports. The team said the incident was caused by a bug in how its Omni deposit and withdrawal infrastructure interacted with the NEAR Intents smart contract.
The contract vulnerability has been patched, and NEAR Intents and Near.com were expected to resume operations within about an hour. However, deposits and withdrawals on 11 blockchain networks, including BSC, Polygon and Optimism, would remain unavailable for roughly another 12 hours.
Blockchain investigator ZachXBT reported irregular outflows from the protocol's BSC hot wallet, saying the stolen funds were transferred to the KuCoin exchange and bridged to Bitcoin. NEAR Intents said it was already in contact with law enforcement and blockchain analytics platforms to trace the funds and planned to release a post-mortem report in the coming days.
The exploit comes roughly a month and a half after NEAR reported crossing $25 billion in lifetime volume moved through the platform. The NEAR Protocol token was down 6.7% on the day, trading at $4.96. The Bitwise NEAR ETF, which launched just two days earlier, also gave back early gains and was down 6.4% at the time of reporting.
Meanwhile, Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan highlighted the early performance of the Bitwise NEAR ETF after it reached $52.8 million in assets under management after its second trading day. Hougan called it a strong launch, with the fund recording $13.2 million in net inflows and $20.1 million in trading volume for the session. The ETF had about $36 million in assets after its first day, indicating a sharp expansion during the following session.
The immediate question for investors is whether the fund can sustain its early inflow pace. Continued subscriptions would push assets under management higher and provide a clearer measure of institutional demand for NEAR exposure, while slower flows could suggest the strong opening was concentrated around launch-day interest.
