NEAR Intents’ SHIELD Blocks Over $50 Million in Stolen Funds from Bitget Breach

NEAR Intents, a cross-chain swap protocol operating on the NEAR blockchain, successfully blocked over $50 million in attempted laundering related to the recent $387.5 million breach of the cryptocurrency exchange Bitget. The incident, which occurred on September 24, prompted NEAR Intents' compliance system, known as SHIELD, to act swiftly, allowing only approximately $166,000 to escape its detection, while an additional $503,000 was frozen during execution.

SHIELD utilizes signals from various intelligence and compliance providers to identify transactions associated with known exploits or suspicious activities. This proactive approach enabled NEAR Intents to redirect most of the flagged transactions to alternative providers, effectively preventing the stolen assets from re-entering the market through its platform. NEAR Intents distinguishes itself by being a permissionless protocol that allows free transactions while filtering out stolen assets, a balance it claims is crucial for maintaining integrity in the crypto space.

Gracy Chen, CEO of Bitget, commended NEAR Intents for its role in disrupting the laundering process. Notably, NEAR Intents chose to forgo a potential 5% bounty on the blocked funds, which would have amounted to a significant sum given the scale of the attempted laundering. Although the $50 million blocked does not compensate Bitget or its users for their substantial loss, it does hinder the hackers' ability to cash out, thereby extending the timeframe for recovery efforts within the broader cryptocurrency ecosystem.

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Source: KLEA News