Theft of NEAR Intents: the alleged perpetrator responds to the ultimatum

The address identified in the NEAR Intents theft responded to the ultimatum. On October 2 at 10:22 UTC, she sent 1 BNB to the restitution wallet published by Alex Shevchenko, with a message written in the transaction: “Willing to cooperate, reply with your Signal so contact is possible. » The team has not yet said whether it will follow through.

Key Points

The message starts from 0x09fd1f5d9f185067a92493e43aa259ea4ab3ad37, the address of the theft on BNB Chain, already pointed out by ZachXBT

It arrives at 0xB18a1aEDfde8B70FD67012C9E9c7a088B4d0C0e7, one of three return addresses published overnight

1 BNB is not a refund: the $3.8 million did not come back

The 48-hour window opened by Shevchenko runs until October 4, around 0:18 UTC

A message, not a restitution

On the night of October 1-2, Alex Shevchenko, who runs NEAR Intents, wrote on X that he had identified the author of the theft. He gave him 48 hours to return the funds, and published three addresses: one in bitcoin, one common to BNB Chain and Ethereum, one on Solana. The tone was that of a final window of responsible disclosure. After this time, the window closes.

The response arrived about ten hours later, and it didn’t respond. Transaction 0x865…fe10b moves 1 BNB, approximately $780 at the current rate, from the address through which the funds exited. The text travels through transaction data, the channel hackers sometimes use to trade without opening an account. The request is precise: a Signal identifier, to speak off-chain.

This is not the first sign of life from this address. This is the one that ZachXBT had designated in the hours following the exploit, and through which approximately 3.87 million USDT left the NEAR Intents vault on BNB Chain. The majority then went to bitcoin, a part to KuCoin, a crumb to Hyperliquid. Nothing about this journey is undone by the morning message.

The rest is played off-chain

A sending of 1 BNB does not say what the author intends to return, nor under what conditions. No bonus has been announced by the team. Shevchenko has not responded publicly as of this writing, and the NEAR Intents account has not posted anything since its October 1 statement. This press release promised a full refund for users and a detailed report. Both still hold, whether the contact is successful or not.