News linked to both this project and an event.
NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin posted that the recent increase in developer activity and further reduction in development barriers within the ecosystem center on what applications to build and how to establish distribution channels. In response, he proposed a series of potential building directions, including AI virtual pets combining NEAR AI’s on-chain verifiable inference with non-fungible tokens (NFTs); a universal checkout component supporting cross-chain intent payments; a decentralized encyclopedia integrating prediction markets with AI-generated content; a privacy-oriented OTC market based on NEAR Intents, alongside liquidation-resistant lending and perpetual contract management; a cross-chain event registration escrow tool backed by staking deposits; a privacy-preserving code review agent; a corporate cap table management tool; Delta-neutral strategy management; private copy trading utilizing view keys; an end-to-end encrypted medical auxiliary diagnostic system; a privacy-focused voice transcription desktop application; and AI benchmarking based on private test sets, among others.
Alex Shevchenko, General Manager of NEAR Intents, stated that just hours after issuing a 48-hour return deadline to the identified attacker, the $3.8 million stolen from NEAR Intents has been fully refunded. The team has halted its investigation and is calling on security researchers to report issues through a bug bounty program in the future, rather than disrupting network services.
According to Cointelegraph, Alex Shevchenko, General Manager of NEAR Intents, stated that the team has identified the hackers behind the previous security incident and given them a 48-hour deadline to return the stolen funds through a "responsible disclosure." NEAR Intents previously suspended its services due to a vulnerability in the interaction between the Omni deposit and withdrawal infrastructure and its smart contracts. Initial investigations revealed that approximately $3.8 million in user funds were stolen in the incident, and the team has committed to fully compensating affected users. On-chain detective ZachXBT stated that the stolen funds were subsequently transferred to KuCoin and cross-chain converted into Bitcoin.
Odaily News: NEAR Intents has stated that it has identified the attacker responsible for the loss of user funds and has demanded the return of $3.8 million within 48 hours through a "responsible disclosure" mechanism, after which the window will be closed.NEAR Intents suspended services on Thursday after discovering a vulnerability in the interaction between the Omni deposit and withdrawal infrastructure and its smart contracts. A preliminary investigation showed that the attack resulted in the theft of $3.8 million in user funds, and the platform has committed to fully compensating affected users.On-chain investigator ZachXBT disclosed that the related funds were transferred to the KuCoin exchange and subsequently bridged to Bitcoin. (Cointelegraph)
Odaily News — Gracy Chen, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Bitget, said the company is not optimistic about recovering the $388 million in crypto assets lost in last week's security incident. Citing the Bybit hack in 2025 as a reference, she noted that approximately one year after that incident, only about 3.5% of the stolen funds had been frozen, and that this does not equate to a completed recovery.Bitget has set up a bounty program offering 5% rewards for frozen funds and recovered funds respectively. The NEAR Intents team said it has intercepted over $50 million in assets related to the attack and frozen approximately $500,000. Tether and Circle have blacklisted the relevant wallets, freezing $318,000 worth of USDT and USDC.Gracy Chen stated that preliminary investigations indicate the attack may match VPN addresses used by North Korea-linked groups, but Bitget has not yet fully ruled out the possibility of an insider job. Bitget has resumed withdrawals in phases, starting with Bitcoin transactions on Monday and continuing with ETH transactions on Tuesday. (Cointelegraph)