Near Protocol ‘darkness’ and ‘sovereignty’ tweets raise suspicions about hacking

Several tweets came from Near Protocol’s official

On May 8, at approximately 6:18 PM UTC, Near Protocol’s X account posted a 27-second Morse code video without providing any context. Cointelegraph decoded the message: “Darkness is coming.”

Two hours after the cryptic message was tweeted, Near’s The message included the following: “The sun rises in the east,” “Withdraw your thoughts,” “Darkness,” and “Regain your sovereignty.”

Near’s account name and description were also changed to match the tweet’s gothic theme. The screenshot below shows the X account configured with Near Protocol and related tweets.

Near Protocol did not respond to Cointelegraph’s request for comment.

X’s cryptocurrency community and blockchain investigators suspect hijacking is possible. However, no official confirmation has been received at the time of writing.

However, a few supporters of the protocol see this tweet as a sign that bigger things are about to happen for the ecosystem.

In January of this year, the X account from cryptocurrency data collection company CoinGecko was hacked and used in a phishing scam. The company quickly intervened and regained control of its social media accounts.

Related: Near introduces multi-chain transactions from a single account.

Following a similar timeline, Near Foundation, developer of the eponymous layer-1 protocol, laid off 40% of its staff “to significantly consolidate the core Foundation team to focus on narrower, higher-impact activities.”

The decision included laying off 35 Near employees from its marketing, business development and community teams. At the time, the company said:

“The Near Foundation will provide support to our affected colleagues during this time to help them find new opportunities in the NEAR ecosystem, the Web3 industry, and beyond.”

The dismissals followed a review that concluded inefficiencies in the way the foundation was run. The foundation plans to further reduce its footprint over the next few years as the ecosystem moves toward true decentralization.

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