NEAR Faces First Stress Test as NEAR Intents Suffers $3.8 Million Exploit

NEAR is undergoing its first major test following the launch of the Bitwise NEAR ETF (NRR) on NYSE Arca, which saw over $50 million in cumulative inflows by September 30. Shortly after the ETF's debut, the NEAR ecosystem experienced a $3.8 million exploit involving the NEAR Intents Omni infrastructure. The project temporarily halted services to patch a vulnerability in the interaction between Omni and its smart contracts. While NEAR Intents has resumed operations and pledged full compensation to affected users, the incident caused the price of NEAR to drop approximately 10% to $4.86. On-chain investigator ZachXBT tracked the stolen funds, which included 3.87 million USDC, to KuCoin.