Inside this article

What happened on October 1, 2026

NEAR Intents temporarily halted part of its services after detecting a security incident linked to its cross-chain infrastructure. According to The Block, citing communications from the team, the cause was traced to a bug in the interaction between the Omni deposit and withdrawal infrastructure and the NEAR Intents smart contract.

The preliminary loss figure is approximately $3,8 million. The team said the lost amount would be compensated in full. It also said the contract-side vulnerability had been patched.

Why the issue concerns Intents and Omni

NEAR Intents is cross-chain execution infrastructure: users express a desired outcome while solvers and settlement infrastructure handle execution across networks. The project’s public documentation describes Intents as infrastructure for cross-chain swaps and unified liquidity.

Omni Bridge is a separate multi-chain transfer component. The official NEAR One repository describes Omni Bridge as infrastructure for moving assets between blockchain networks, using Chain Signatures and network-specific verification mechanisms.

That distinction matters because the reported incident should not be simplified into “the NEAR blockchain was hacked.” The component identified as problematic was the interaction between Omni deposit/withdrawal infrastructure and the NEAR Intents contract.

The 11 temporarily affected networks

The team said deposits and withdrawals would remain unavailable for roughly another 12 hours on 11 networks, while NEAR Intents and Near.com were expected to resume more quickly after the contract patch.

Reports named BNB Chain, Polygon and Optimism among the affected networks. Operationally, a cross-chain service can partly reopen while some deposit or withdrawal routes stay disabled for longer.

For users, therefore, “service restored” does not necessarily mean every network and every route is immediately available again.

What is known about the funds

The Block reported a preliminary loss estimate of about $3,8 million. NEAR Intents pledged full compensation and said it was working with law enforcement and blockchain analytics firms to trace the funds.

The same report cited on-chain investigator ZachXBT as flagging irregular outflows from a BSC hot wallet and subsequent transfers involving KuCoin and Bitcoin. That should be treated as a third-party investigative reconstruction, not as an independent conclusion by Disciply.

Was the NEAR base protocol compromised?

Available information does not indicate an exploit of NEAR consensus or the base blockchain. NEAR’s official status page shows no main-network incident on October 1, 2026.

That does not prove every ecosystem service was operating normally: blockchain status, applications, bridges and cross-chain infrastructure are different layers. It does mean there is currently no basis to describe this event as a compromise of the NEAR base protocol.

Why the distinction matters for market readers

Crypto incidents are often compressed into a single headline: “project hacked.” The actual risk profile changes substantially depending on which layer failed.

A cross-chain infrastructure problem can interrupt deposits, withdrawals, routing and liquidity without implying that the L1 network lost consensus or security. A base-protocol failure would have a very different technical perimeter.

When reading similar events, separate at least four layers: application contract, bridge/transfer infrastructure, custody or hot wallets, and the base protocol.

What to monitor next

Three checks matter most. First, whether service is fully restored across the 11 affected networks. Second, the promised post-mortem, which should explain the exploit path, scope and controls introduced after the patch. Third, the actual compensation process and any recovery of traced assets.

Until the technical post-mortem is published, detailed reconstructions of the exploit mechanics should remain provisional.

Conclusion

The October 1 event concerns NEAR Intents and its Omni deposit/withdrawal infrastructure, with preliminary losses around $3,8 million and temporary disruption across 11 networks. The contract-side vulnerability was reported as patched and the team promised full compensation.

For now, the accurate reading is to separate this cross-chain incident from the security of the NEAR base blockchain. Further conclusions should depend on the technical post-mortem and final loss data.

Educational and informational content. This is not financial advice.

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