Two major cross-chain swap networks responded differently to stolen funds from the $388 million Bitget breach last week, revealing a stark divide in how decentralized finance handles security and compliance.
NEAR Intents blocked more than $50 million in attempted transfers linked to the theft using its SHIELD screening system, which checks transaction flows against data from TRM Labs, AMLBot, PureFi, Binance AML, and internal databases. The system froze approximately $503,000 mid-transaction and allowed roughly $166,000 to pass through before detection, according to NEAR general manager Alex Shevchenko.
THORChain, the largest decentralized swap network, took the opposite approach. It processed about $6.3 million in ether-to-bitcoin swaps from a wallet tied to the attack and declined Bitget's request to block the addresses involved.
Permissionless Versus Accountable
The incident highlights a central tension in decentralized infrastructure design. NEAR markets itself as permissionless and open, yet implemented screening that blocks suspected stolen funds. Cofounder Illia Polosukhin defined permissionless narrowly: nobody needs permission to own assets, transfer them, or deploy contracts. The service described itself as "permissionless infrastructure, but with boundaries."
THORChain defended its decision publicly, arguing that "THORChain is permissionless and doesn't censor by design." The protocol noted that base-layer blockchains like Bitcoin and Ethereum do not block stolen funds either, and referenced its own experience: addresses that took $10.7 million from THORChain's vaults in May were never blacklisted.
Industry leaders contested both positions. Bitget CEO Gracy Chen stated that decentralization "is a design principle, not a shield for facilitating known stolen funds." OKX founder Star Xu argued that THORChain's validators jointly control assets in its vaults, making the network an intermediary rather a base layer, and noted the validators halted the network for 39 days in May when addressing their own security breach.
The Stablecoin Exception
While swap networks disagreed, stablecoin issuers acted decisively. Circle and Tether froze approximately $320,000 in USDC and USDT linked to the Bitget breach. Though modest relative to the total theft, this freeze underscores that issuer-level controls remain the most reliable mechanism for halting stolen funds in crypto.
Unanswered Questions
NEAR is holding the intercepted $503,000 pending legal and recovery processes, waiving any recovery bounty Bitget offered. Formal requests route through a Kodex law-enforcement portal, but Shevchenko's report does not specify who can authorize release or provide a process for users wrongly flagged by screening.
The screening system operates with a stated error margin of approximately 10 percent. A system that halts transfers on suspicion, without published release authority or remedy, raises liability questions similar to those resolved in traditional securities and payments industries through defined processes.
The first dispute over release of the frozen $503,000 will test whether decentralized networks can establish transparent rules for handling intercepted funds.
