NEAR Protocol news

NEAR Protocol's intent-based cross-chain execution layer, NEAR Intents, has surpassed $30 billion in cumulative all-time volume, reaching approximately $31.4 billion, according to Dune Analytics data. The milestone was accompanied by record daily performance, with September 18 seeing daily volume exceed $300 million and weekly tallies ranging between $842 million and $1.04 billion. The system allows users to declare swap intentions across chains, with competing solvers finding the most efficient path, eliminating the need for bridges or wrapped assets. It currently supports over 30 chains and 100 assets, with cumulative public intent fees exceeding $48 million. Privacy features are driving recent volume, notably Zcash swaps via the ZODL wallet, which produced $3.8 million in volume across 458 transactions. Of the total volume, approximately $29.5 billion came from public intents and nearly $1.9 billion from confidential intents, which avoid exposing order details on-chain before execution. In response to the surge, the NEAR token rose about 78% within a week, reaching approximately $4.29 per token, as weekly volumes stayed above $800 million for multiple consecutive days.

NEAR has partnered with Ondo Finance to offer tokenized stocks and ETFs directly on near.com, enabling eligible users to access traditional market assets alongside crypto through a single account. The integration with Ondo Stocks, which has over $1 billion in total value locked and $26 billion in cumulative trading volume, initially features 20 assets including tokenized shares of Nvidia, Tesla, and Apple, as well as ETFs like QQQ. Users can transact with USDC, Bitcoin, and other supported assets across more than 30 networks, powered by NEAR Intents for seamless routing and execution without manual bridging or multiple wallets. Near.com also provides confidential execution for supported transactions. The partnership extends beyond the platform, allowing access to Ondo assets through other wallets and applications integrated with NEAR Intents, subject to eligibility and jurisdictional restrictions.

Near Protocol's native token NEAR rose nearly 80% over the past week, reaching $4.29 on Monday, far outpacing the broader crypto market's 6% gain. The surge follows the network's expansion of privacy-focused trading services, including confidential perpetual futures deposits and withdrawals by default on near.com. Near also reported its confidential total value locked crossed $70 million, triggering the first distribution under its NEAR@3.33 incentive program, which unlocks tokens when the price reaches $3.33. Cumulatively, NEAR Intents volume hit $29.3 billion, with privacy-focused Zcash wallet ZODL as a top referral source. Analysts see Near and Zcash as complementary, with Near providing confidential cross-chain infrastructure for ZEC holders. However, they caution that rising ZEC prices can inflate NEAR Intents' TVL without new deposits.

Bitcoin rose above $81,000 during Asian trading on Monday, gaining less than 1% in 24 hours, supported by the SEC's recent approval for onchain trading of tokenized U.S. stocks, which triggered a short squeeze. The broader market also benefited from positive U.S.-China trade talks, lifting Asian equities and U.S. stock futures, while falling oil prices eased inflation concerns. NEAR was the standout performer, surging about 23% to above $4 after its cross-chain swap service, NEAR Intents, saw daily ZEC volume jump sixfold due to integration with major wallets like ZODL and Vizor. ZEC rose 3%, BNB gained 2%, while Ether, HYPE, XRP, DOGE, SOL, and TRX posted smaller gains. Jeff Mei of BTSE attributed the weekend's bitcoin spike to the SEC's tokenized stock decision and the ensuing short squeeze, predicting more volatility ahead of the Fed's late-October meeting.

NEAR Protocol's token surged over 80%, from roughly $2.34 to $3.60, following the launch of its confidential perpetual futures trading product. The price jump increased NEAR's market cap from about $3.2 billion to $4.46 billion and drove 24-hour trading volume up 120% to exceed $1.24 billion. The new product integrates NEAR's Confidential Intents privacy layer with Hyperliquid's execution engine, offering up to 40x leverage across more than 50 markets while keeping deposit and holding details private. It launched around September 17, 2026, and quickly pushed total value locked in Confidential Intents to $70 million, triggering NEAR's @3.33 incentive program. The product is not available in the US or certain other jurisdictions.

NEAR Protocol's intent-based cross-chain execution layer, NEAR Intents, has reached $169 million in total value locked (TVL), a 77.2% increase over the past 30 days, according to DefiLlama. The layer now spans 26 blockchains, with NEAR's own chain holding about 52% of the capital ($87.23 million) and Ethereum second at $45.89 million. NEAR Intents generated roughly $5.87 million in fees over the last 30 days, with $1.29 million in protocol revenue. Its growth is driven by wallet and aggregator integrations and expanding network effects across supported chains, although this also increases potential bridge and smart contract risks.

NEAR Protocol has enabled private perpetual futures by default as of September 17, routing deposits through a confidential shard to hide trader identities and funding origins. The feature, built on Confidential Intents with a trusted execution environment bridge, keeps positions visible on Hyperliquid's order book but disconnects deposit wallets from trading activity. The protocol uses Hyperliquid's perps engine, integrated in June, offering over 35 chains and 50 markets with leverage up to 40x. Hyperliquid processed about $240 billion in perps volume in the prior 30 days, helping NEAR avoid liquidity cold-start issues. Cross-chain funding converts deposits to USDC automatically via NEAR Intents. Following the update, NEAR's token rallied 21-45% to $3.21-$3.45, with trading volume surging 120% in 24 hours. The launch coincided with Confidential Intents' TVL crossing $70 million, triggering an incentive program snapshot.

NEAR AI Cloud has launched full OpenAI compatibility, allowing developers to switch from OpenAI to its privacy-first infrastructure by changing one URL and API key. The API supports chat and legacy completions, tool calling, and structured outputs, with Python and JavaScript SDKs working out of the box. NEAR's TEE-hosted models, including GLM 5.2 variants, run inside Intel TDX and NVIDIA confidential computing hardware, providing cryptographic attestation that computations occur in secure enclaves. Staking-based payments for AI compute credits and expanded integrations with LiteLLM, Aider, and Continue were added between July and September 2026. The move extends NEAR's developer-focused blockchain philosophy into AI infrastructure, offering familiar tooling with blockchain-sourced privacy and payments. However, TEE-based inference adds latency, and staking-based payments introduce token price volatility, which may concern enterprise buyers seeking predictable costs.

NEAR Protocol's open-source Lean agent has solved all 672 problems in the PutnamBench benchmark for a total cost of $111, a result announced by co-founder Alex Skidanov on September 6, 2026. This is reportedly 250 times cheaper than the second-most cost-efficient known submission, which would typically range from $10,000 to $25,000 for a full run. PutnamBench, introduced in 2024, comprises problems from the notoriously difficult William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, encoded in the Lean 4 proof assistant language. NEAR AI's efficiency breakthrough is tied to its broader IronClaw infrastructure vision for confidential and verifiable AI, and the open-sourcing of the agent allows the methodology to be publicly inspected and extended.

NEAR Protocol activated post-quantum signing on its mainnet on July 20, 2026, via network upgrade 2.13, becoming one of the first major blockchains with a production-ready quantum-resistant signature scheme. The upgrade implements the NIST-standard ML-DSA-65 lattice-based signatures, allowing users to rotate to quantum-resistant keys in a single transaction, with no asset migration or new wallet address required. The feature also extends beyond NEAR-native assets, protecting funds from over 30 blockchains through Chain Signatures and NEAR Intents. NEAR highlighted the “harvest now, decrypt later” threat, where adversaries could collect encrypted data and crack it once quantum hardware matures. The team plans to improve signature efficiency and aims to secure its consensus mechanism with post-quantum cryptography by end of 2027.