Cross-chain service halts 11 networks after exploit

TLDR

NEAR Intents, a cross-chain trading protocol, halted deposits and withdrawals on 11 networks after a roughly $3.8 million exploit and has pledged full reimbursement to users.

1. NEAR Intents paused services and disabled deposits/withdrawals on 11 chains after a bug in its Omni infrastructure-smart contract interaction was exploited.
2. Core swapping services are expected to resume quickly, but users on BSC, Polygon, ethereum/">Optimism and other affected networks face temporary disruption while funds are traced.
3. The team promises a post-mortem, law-enforcement cooperation and compensation, and the incident reinforces that cross-chain bridges remain one of cryptos riskiest attack surfaces.

Deep Dive

1. Exploit And Network Pause

Reports say NEAR Intents suffered an exploit of about $3.8 million tied to a bug in how its Omni deposit/withdrawal system interacted with the NEAR Intents smart contract, forcing a service halt and emergency fixes. Sources including TokenPost and CoinDesk note that the protocol temporarily disabled deposits and withdrawals on 11 networks, including BNB Smart Chain, Polygon, TON, Optimism, Avalanche, Stellar, Monad, X Layer, Adi, Scroll and Plasma, while patching infrastructure and investigating the breach. NEAR Intents has stated that the contract vulnerability is fixed and that it will fully reimburse affected users, with core services expected to come back online relatively quickly.

2. User Impact And Security Context

While NEAR Intents and near.com were expected to resume main operations within about an hour of the announcement, cross-chain deposits and withdrawals on the 11 affected networks were projected to stay unavailable for roughly 12 hours during repairs. On-chain analyst ZachXBT reported that irregular outflows from a BSC hot wallet linked to the protocol were sent to KuCoin and then bridged into Bitcoin, highlighting how attackers rapidly move funds across chains to complicate recovery. Importantly, coverage notes that the issue lies in cross-chain infrastructure rather than the NEAR Protocol (NEAR) base blockchain itself, but it adds to a broader pattern where bridge and cross-chain systems account for a large share of recent hacks.

3. What To Watch Next

NEAR Intents has said it reported the incident to law enforcement and is working with security and analytics firms to trace stolen funds, with a detailed investigation report promised in coming days. For users, the key milestones are: confirmation that deposits and withdrawals on all 11 networks are fully restored, clear reimbursement mechanics and timing, and any follow-up changes to the protocols security model or limits on cross-chain flows. More broadly, this exploit is another reminder to watch how projects harden bridge contracts, improve monitoring and implement rate limits, as weaknesses here can ripple across many chains at once.

Conclusion

A single infrastructure bug in NEAR Intents cross-chain system forced the protocol to halt activity on 11 networks and led to multimillion-dollar losses, even though the underlying NEAR blockchain remained intact. As cross-chain tools become central to DeFi, this incident underlines that users and builders should treat bridge security, monitoring and pause mechanisms as critical features, not extras, and track how quickly teams respond and make affected users whole.