NEAR Intents, a cross-chain trading protocol on the NEAR blockchain, lost approximately $3.865 million in USDT due to an exploit. The incident occurred between September 30 and October 1, 2026, and involved a vulnerability in the Omni cross-chain system.
The attacker withdrew funds from a BNB Chain vault through five transactions over six hours. Only USDT on the BNB Smart Chain was impacted, while the NEAR Protocol and its native token remained unaffected. The team patched the vulnerability within one hour of detection.
Following the breach, NEAR Intents paused services across 11 networks for 12 hours. General Manager Alex Shevchenko publicly identified the attacker and issued a 48-hour deadline for the return of the stolen assets.
The full amount of $3.865 million was returned within 24 hours, by October 2. The protocol had previously committed to using treasury funds to compensate users for any losses incurred during the incident.
