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)
Odaily News: Fintech institution Responsible Fintech Institute (RFI) and crypto asset custody infrastructure provider Safeheron have announced the launch of a pilot for quantum-resistant digital asset wallets and on-chain transfers, with participants from Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. The pilot runs on the quantum-resistant NEAR testnet and utilizes a multi-party computation protocol supporting the ML-DSA-65 standard.Participating regulators include Abu Dhabi Global Market, Bhutan's Gelephu Financial Services Office, and Malta's Financial Services Authority, with Bison Bank and DK Bank participating as financial institutions. Banks will test wallet generation and transfers in a shared application environment, with regulators observing in the initial phase and later participating in governance workflows.The organizers plan to publish a whitepaper covering research, protocol design, and test results, and will gradually open-source the underlying technology. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority plans to fully prepare Hong Kong's banking sector for quantum security risks by 2030, while a 2025 report from the Bank for International Settlements recommends that financial institutions migrate to quantum-resistant systems in phases. (Cointelegraph)
Odaily News, June 9th — BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes stated in his latest article "Reality Test" that if oil prices continue to rise due to the US-Iran conflict, it could trigger a collapse of the AI stock bubble and drag the entire crypto market down.Hayes said that if traffic restrictions in the Strait of Hormuz persist deep into the second quarter, spot prices for hydrocarbons and other key commodities could rise in the third quarter. If oil prices continue to climb and inflationary pressures impact the US midterm elections, Trump might pivot to a tough stance targeting data center construction, AI regulation, and taxation. Hayes believes the market could anticipate Trump limiting AI capital expenditure and taxing AI companies, thereby triggering the burst of the AI stock bubble.Hayes also noted that since November 2022, the scale of AI-related debt issuance has been approximately $1.5 trillion, and US M2 has increased by roughly the same amount during the same period. He believes the three factors that could pop the AI bubble include rising energy costs, the market's inability to absorb three major AI-related IPOs — namely SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI — and Trump's shift to opposing AI. In terms of portfolio, Hayes stated that Maelstrom's stock portfolio holds significant positions in US-listed energy producers; he has sold AI-related stocks and offloaded non-core crypto assets, having dumped HYPE, NEAR, and WLD last week, as well as selling ZEC due to the Orchard Pool vulnerability. He still holds Bitcoin and ETH and will execute tactical short trades via derivatives.
Hyperliquid has recently significantly outperformed the broader market. Its token, HYPE, hit an all-time high following the launch of two related ETFs in the United States. Meanwhile, European traders are accelerating their migration to the platform due to restricted access to perpetual contracts on regulated exchanges. Market analyst Michael van de Poppe stated that with Hyperliquid's continued rally and renewed interest in AI-related crypto projects, signs of improving risk appetite are emerging in the altcoin market. Hyperliquid’s expansion into tokenized stocks, commodities, and pre-IPO assets is strengthening the on-chain asset tokenization trend. He suggested that if market sentiment continues to improve, HYPE’s price could target $100 or even higher.However, Michael van de Poppe also stressed that while Hyperliquid holds a short-term advantage, Solana offers greater long-term investment certainty, transitioning from a "speculative ecosystem" to institutional-grade infrastructure. In the AI track, he noted that NEAR Protocol and Bittensor remain significantly undervalued, citing a disconnect between their fundamental growth and valuations. He pointed out that NEAR’s revenue growth potential and Bittensor’s subnet expansion could support higher valuation ranges. Additionally, he indicated that the privacy sector retains long-term demand, but fully anonymous systems face regulatory pressure. The future is more likely to be dominated by zero-knowledge proofs and compliant privacy solutions.On the macro level, Michael van de Poppe highlighted that bond yields and central bank policies remain the core drivers of the crypto market, with changes in Japanese government bond yields potentially serving as a key barometer. (CoinDesk)