NEAR Intents turned away about $50 million of Bitget loot that the hackers routed elsewhere

The attempt at NEAR ran past $50 million, about 12.9% of the roughly $387.5 million taken. The $6 million-plus that went through THORChain is about 1.5% ^{[5][7][2][15][16]}. Between them, the two protocols at the centre of the policy argument saw roughly a seventh of the loot ^[17]. At NEAR, $166,000 got through. That is at most a third of one percent of the attempt, so about $49.8 million was refused ^[3][20][21].

The refused money kept moving. According to Bankless, the culprits routed the Bitget funds SHIELD blocked to other protocols ^[11]. For the attacker, screening at one venue is a detour. For NEAR, the block means only that its own solvers did not execute those trades. Bankless ties that limit to NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin's pitch of SHIELD as shared infrastructure ^[11][13].

THORChain's stance has a record. Bankless reports it facilitated 72% of the stolen ETH moved after the $1.4 billion Bybit hack in February 2025 ^[10], and it declined to block again with Bitget ^[1]. Whatever Bybit cost THORChain, the policy did not change ^[1][10]. Bankless calls it "the go-to exit ramp for crypto's biggest heists" ^[12]. The source does not report THORChain's fee income on the $6 million or the volume NEAR gave up by refusing $50 million, so neither choice can yet be priced in dollars ^[7][2].

NEAR's exposure is in its privacy product. Deposits into and withdrawals from NEAR Intents are ordinary public transactions on Bitcoin, Ethereum and Zcash; balances, routes and trades sit inside Confidential Intents ^[14]. SHIELD compares those public deposit addresses with stolen-funds intelligence that much of the industry already shares ^[4]. By Bankless's account, the block opened nothing confidential. The backlash Bankless describes asks what would stop NEAR doing the same to other users later ^[8]. Bankless's own verdict is that SHIELD is "an opinionated, moral implementation that makes NEAR unviable for moving large amounts of illicit funds" ^[18].

If SHIELD spreads as shared infrastructure, neutral rails become the remaining exit and more of the flow lands on THORChain ^[13][12]. Kept at NEAR alone, screening remains a detour and both protocols keep the exposure they have now ^[11]. A privacy complaint that sticks would cost NEAR Confidential Intents users over a check that only touched public addresses ^[4][8]. I think compliance posture is now a real way to tell these protocols apart, because it decides which venue carries a heist's flow and the reputation attached to it. The counter-case is THORChain's own record. It moved most of Bybit's stolen ETH, and a hacker-linked wallet still used it for more than $6 million after Bitget ^[10][7]. The evidence here puts no measured cost on its neutrality. If the next large theft again runs mostly through THORChain with its policy and usage unchanged, the risk-factor view is wrong.