If you've ever moved a large crypto trade onchain and wondered who could see it before it executed, NEAR is building an answer.
NEAR.com's Confidential Intents lets users swap assets across more than 30 blockchains while keeping transactions out of the public mempool during execution, reducing exposure to front-running and other forms of MEV.
Now users are putting serious money behind it.
NEAR surpassed $70 million in confidential Total Value Locked (TVL) on Sept. 17, triggering the first snapshot in its [email protected] Incentive Milestone Program and making 333,333 milestone tokens available for eligible community members to claim.
For everyday users, however, the bigger reason to pay attention isn't the reward. It's the ability to move assets across chains without manually navigating bridges while adding a layer of privacy to activity that would ordinarily be visible onchain.
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What Does Confidential Trading Actually Do for Me?
Most public blockchains are transparent by design. When you submit a transaction through a public mempool, information about that transaction can become visible before it is finalized.
That creates opportunities for sophisticated bots and traders to react to pending orders through front-running, sandwich attacks and other MEV strategies.
NEAR's Confidential Intents takes a different approach. Transactions are routed through a private NEAR shard, keeping details hidden during execution rather than broadcasting them through a public mempool.
For an individual trader, that can mean less exposure to bots watching an order before it settles.
The benefit becomes more significant as transaction sizes increase. Institutions, funds and professional traders may not want competitors watching their positions, trade sizes or strategies develop in real time.
NEAR is effectively trying to preserve one of blockchain's major advantages, cross-chain settlement, without requiring traders to reveal as much information while a transaction is being executed.
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Swap Across 30+ Chains Without Doing the Bridging Yourself
Privacy is only one part of the proposition. NEAR.com acts as a multi-chain interface powered by NEAR Intents, allowing users to specify what they want to accomplish while the underlying infrastructure handles the routing.
Instead of manually moving an asset through a bridge, finding the appropriate exchange and managing transactions across several networks, a user can initiate a cross-chain swap through one interface.
NEAR says its infrastructure connects 30+ blockchains and has processed more than $30 billion in cross-chain volume. That combination makes Confidential Intents worth watching for people who already move assets between ecosystems such as Ethereum and other supported networks.
The product isn't simply trying to make crypto private. It's attempting to make cross-chain trading both simpler and less exposed.
There's Also a 333,333-Token Incentive
The $70 million milestone comes with another reason for users to pay attention. Crossing the threshold automatically triggered the snapshot for Drop 1 of the [email protected] Incentive Milestone Program.
A total of 333,333 milestone tokens will be available for eligible participants to claim through near.com. It isn't a traditional airdrop.
To qualify, participants need to maintain a confidential balance above $100 and have an active swap history. Individual wallets are also capped at 2% of the distribution to reduce concentration.
There is another important condition: receiving milestone tokens doesn't immediately mean receiving regular NEAR.
The rewards remain locked until NEAR's three-day volume-weighted average price reaches at least $3.33. If that condition is met, the milestone tokens convert into NEAR.
The $70 million TVL threshold determined when the snapshot happened. NEAR's market price determines when the rewards can become NEAR.
Why Is NEAR Building This Now?
As institutional trading, tokenized assets and AI agents move onchain, keeping transactions private becomes more important. Large traders may not want competitors or bots seeing their activity before execution.
“Confidentiality is quickly becoming a core requirement for the industry, and NEAR is becoming the rail to make it the new default,” said Alex Shevchenko, GM of NEAR Intents.
For users who regularly swap across blockchains, trade larger positions or want less exposure to bots, NEAR offers a simpler way to move assets across 30+ chains with confidential execution.
Cross-chain trading still carries risks including slippage, fees and smart-contract failures. But with $70 million now deposited and 333,333 milestone tokens triggered, users have another reason to try it.
Reporting by Lidia Yadlos
