DFINITY Founder Alleges Key Components of NEAR Intents Misappropriated Its Proprietary Technology

DFINITY, the developer behind the Internet Computer project, its founder Dominic Williams published a statement revealing that after further investigation, the key enabling components of NEAR Intents are actually stolen proprietary technology from DFINITY, adding that the relevant actions involve legal issues. Williams alleged that NEAR utilized personnel who were fired by DFINITY in the summer of 2021 and had been linked to multiple attempts that harmed the project, integrating DFINITY’s inventions into an open-source threshold cryptography library to quickly deploy its ECDSA-related work. This solution originates from the team’s research on integrating chain-key cryptography with Ethereum; the associated paper outlines an algorithm where collaborative nodes generate ECDSA public keys and signatures, enabling a roughly three-fold increase in signing speed without compromising security—serving as the threshold signature foundation required for Chain Abstraction and Intents. Williams pointed out that Internet Computer runs this algorithm on highly decentralized subnetworks, while NEAR is reportedly operating it on only around 8 servers, leaving the public with limited access to additional details. He argued that NEAR leveraged this technology to launch Chain Abstraction and Intents ahead of schedule, falsely claiming they were self-developed, decentralized, and secure—none of these assertions hold up. Williams also noted that GitHub data shows NEAR is now urgently attempting to downgrade to a slower algorithm after using the technology for approximately two and a half years, adding that if NEAR had sought cooperation under fair terms, DFINITY would have shared the technology and required proper attribution. To date, NEAR has not issued a public response to these allegations.