NEAR Intents has blocked over $50 million in transfers linked to the Bitget hack, with $503,000 actually frozen.

General Manager of cross-chain protocol NEAR Intents Alex Shevchenko said its SHIELD system has identified and blocked over $50 million in transfer attempts linked to the Bitget attacker, with the related funds later diverted to other service providers. The system actually froze around $503,000 during transaction execution, but approximately $166,000 in suspected stolen funds still transferred via NEAR Intents. Shevchenko noted that a significant portion of the $387.5 million in assets stolen by the Bitget attacker was cross-chain transferred to Ethereum. NEAR Intents will forgo the 5% bounty offered by Bitget for freezing the attacker’s funds, plus an additional 5% bounty to be provided after funds are recovered, so more funds can be returned to Bitget. The frozen assets will be returned through appropriate legal procedures. Shevchenko argued that permissionless systems do not have to be neutral; protocol developers still need to decide what actions the system allows. He stated: “Refusing to help launder stolen assets is one of our choices.” He also added that property rights are the foundation of a functioning market, and the crypto industry cannot demand recognition of digital property rights while building infrastructure that facilitates the cashing out of stolen assets. This statement comes as THORChain faces criticism for handling funds linked to the Bitget attacker. THORChain responded that its protocol is designed without censorship; the prior network suspension was an emergency security mechanism affecting the entire protocol, not selective freezing of specific funds or individual transactions. Additionally, Circle and Tether previously blacklisted a wallet linked to the Bitget attacker, freezing approximately $318,000 in USDT and USDC.