Near Intents recovers $3.8 million after 48-hour ultimatum to exploiter

Near Intents, a cross-chain swap service, has successfully recovered the full $3.8 million that was drained in an exploit on Thursday. General manager Alex Shevchenko announced the recovery on Friday, stating that the investigation into the incident has concluded. The swift return of funds followed Shevchenko's public address to the attacker, identifying them and issuing a 48-hour ultimatum to return the stolen assets. The exploit occurred due to a bug in the interaction between Near Intents' Omni deposit and withdrawal layer and its main smart contract. The service had halted operations immediately after the incident and reported the matter to law enforcement. Blockchain analytics firm ZachXBT tracked the stolen funds, noting they were sent to KuCoin and then bridged to Bitcoin. In an on-chain message that appears to be from the exploiter, the individual admitted fault, stated "we were in the wrong," and encouraged the use of bug bounties instead of exploiting vulnerabilities. Near Intents facilitates token swaps across 35 blockchains by connecting users with market makers, having processed over $30 billion in swaps to date.