NEAR Intents says it blocked more than $50 million tied to Bitget hack

NEAR Intents said it blocked more than $50 million in attempted transfers linked to the Bitget hack. Alex Shevchenko, the general manager of NEAR Intents, said its SHIELD system detected and blocked the attempted transfers. Shevchenko said the transfers then went to other providers. Shevchenko said the system froze $503,000 during execution. Around $166,000 in suspected stolen funds passed through. Attackers stole $387.5 million from Bitget on Thursday. Shevchenko said a significant portion of the stolen funds moved across chains to Ethereum. NEAR Intents said it will forgo a 5% bounty offered by Bitget for freezing attacker funds. It will also forgo an additional 5% bounty for recovery. NEAR Intents said forgoing the bounties would allow more funds to be returned to Bitget. Shevchenko said the frozen funds would be returned through an appropriate legal process. Circle and Tether blacklisted a wallet linked to the Bitget exploiter on Friday. Onchain data showed that $318,013 of USDt and USDC was frozen. Bitget CEO Gracy Chen called on THORChain on Friday to refuse services to addresses linked to the attack. THORChain said it does not censor by design. THORChain said it had halted the network in the past as an emergency security measure. THORChain said the measure affects the protocol broadly and is not a selective freeze of specific funds or an individual swap. Shevchenko argued that permissionless systems do not necessarily have to be neutral. Shevchenko said refusing to help launder stolen assets was one of NEAR Intents' choices. Shevchenko said crypto cannot simultaneously demand recognition of digital property rights and build infrastructure optimized for monetizing stolen property.