NEAR Intents Prevents $1 Million Theft Recovery Following Bitget Exploit

The NEAR Intents protocol has successfully intercepted an attempted laundering of stolen assets following a significant security breach at the Bitget exchange. According to reports released on September 29, 2026, the SHIELD risk intelligence layer identified and halted a transaction involving over $1 million in illicit funds. While the attacker attempted to move the full amount through the NEAR ecosystem, the protocol’s automated defense mechanisms ensured that only a small fraction of the capital, approximately $27,000, was able to pass through before the execution was terminated.

The Role of SHIELD in Asset Protection

Alex Shevchenko, the head of NEAR Intents, detailed how the platform's native security infrastructure managed to identify the suspicious activity in real-time. The intervention was made possible by SHIELD, an advanced risk intelligence layer designed to monitor blockchain transactions for anomalies. This system operates by automatically detecting abnormal fund flows and cross-referencing addresses with known hacker-related activity.

• The system identified an attempt to bridge over $1 million in stolen assets.
• Approximately $983,000 was successfully frozen or aborted during the execution phase.
• Only $27,000 moved through the protocol before the security triggers were finalized.

By rejecting offers that meet specific high-risk criteria, the protocol prevents the obfuscation of transaction histories often used by cybercriminals to bypass centralized exchange monitors.

Strategic Response and Bounty Waiver

In a show of industry cooperation, the NEAR Intents team has taken a firm stance against the laundering of stolen digital assets. Shevchenko confirmed that the project is working to assist Bitget in the recovery process to minimize the impact of the exploit on the exchange and its users. Notably, the protocol has declined a "5+5" bounty—a standard industry practice where white-hat actors or recovery services receive 5% of the funds and 5% as a bonus—in order to maximize the amount returned to the original platform.

NEAR Intents is against money laundering of stolen assets and has waived the 5+5 bounty set by Bitget to help Bitget recover as much funds as possible.

This event underscores the evolving capabilities of decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols to self-regulate and provide security layers that were previously exclusive to centralized entities. The integration of the SHIELD layer represents a shift toward proactive risk management within the NEAR blockchain ecosystem, offering a template for how other networks might mitigate the movement of exploited liquidity across different chains.