The cryptocurrency exchange Bitget suffered a major breach on Thursday, with attackers making off with roughly $387.5 million. The stolen assets quickly traversed multiple blockchains, including Ethereum, prompting a scramble among cross-chain services to identify and stop the illicit flow.

NEAR Intents’ Intervention

NEAR Intents, a protocol that enables swaps across different networks, reported that its SHIELD monitoring tool identified and blocked more than $50 million in transfer attempts tied to the hack. While the system succeeded in freezing about $503,000 during the execution phase, an estimated $166,000 of suspected stolen funds still slipped through to other providers.

The protocol’s general manager, Alex Shevchenko, emphasized that permissionless platforms can still make policy choices. He argued that refusing to facilitate the laundering of stolen assets aligns with the principle that property rights underpin functional markets. In his view, a system that lets thieves monetize their gains cannot serve as a reliable economic foundation.

Rejection of the Bounty Offer

Bitget had offered a 5% bounty for each frozen transaction and another 5% for any recovered amount. NEAR Intents chose to decline the incentive, stating that the forfeited reward would allow a larger share of the frozen capital to be returned to Bitget. Shevchenko indicated that the unfreeze process would follow an appropriate legal pathway.

Wider Industry Response

The incident also saw major stablecoin issuers Circle and Tether place a wallet associated with the exploit on a blacklist, locking $318,013 of USDT and USDC. Bitget’s CEO, Gracy Chen, appealed to THORChain—a decentralized swapping protocol—to stop servicing addresses linked to the attack. THORChain responded that its design does not incorporate selective censorship, noting that any network-wide halts are emergency safeguards rather than targeted freezes.

Implications for Permissionless Finance

The divergent reactions underscore a growing debate within the decentralized finance ecosystem. While some protocols maintain a hands-off approach, others, like NEAR Intents, are beginning to embed active safeguards against illicit activity. Shevchenko’s comments suggest a shift toward viewing digital property rights as a non-negotiable element of market integrity, even in open-access environments.

Why it matters

The ability of a cross-chain service to intercept a substantial portion of stolen funds demonstrates that permissionless infrastructure can incorporate effective anti-money-laundering mechanisms without sacrificing core functionality. As regulators worldwide scrutinize crypto’s role in financial crime, NEAR Intents’ actions may set a precedent for how decentralized platforms balance openness with responsibility, potentially influencing future policy and industry standards.