NEAR Protocol has emerged as one of the standout performers of this year's cryptocurrency market recovery, with its token more than quadrupling in value since its February low. What began as a rebound from a prolonged downtrend has grown into a rally underpinned by product developments that are reshaping how the network positions itself within the broader blockchain landscape.

Following months of decline, NEAR briefly dropped below $1 in February 2026. The token has since recovered to trade above $4.50, with the strongest gains concentrated in the second half of September. The momentum coincided with two developments on September 17: the unveiling of new features for confidential derivatives trading and the platform crossing $70 million in total value locked (TVL) — a standard measure of capital deposited in a protocol or network. Both landed amid a broader recovery across the crypto market.

The price action, however, tells only part of the story. NEAR has steadily moved beyond its original role as a conventional Layer-1 blockchain. The network increasingly presents itself as infrastructure that enables users and applications to move assets across different chains — an approach commonly described in the industry as chain abstraction — and the centerpiece of that strategy is a product known as NEAR Intents.

NEAR Intents: Cross-Chain Trading by Intent

NEAR Protocol's principal growth product, NEAR Intents, simplifies transactions that span multiple blockchains. Instead of manually transferring assets through a bridge and then swapping them on a decentralized exchange, users simply specify the outcome they want — for example, exchanging Bitcoin for USDC on Ethereum — without executing any of the intermediate steps themselves.

Specialized service providers known as solvers compete to fill these orders, sourcing the required liquidity and handling the technical execution. This design positions NEAR Intents as cross-chain trading infrastructure that can be seamlessly integrated into existing wallets and trading platforms.

Adoption is expanding through integrations with platforms such as Ledger Wallet and SimpleSwap. For these services, Intents can serve as an additional source of liquidity without requiring their users to interact directly with the NEAR blockchain.

The arrangement opens a business model that extends beyond NEAR's own chain: the network could potentially benefit from trading activity on Ethereum, Solana and other networks. Much depends, however, on whether integration partners continue to rely on its infrastructure over the long term and on whether NEAR captures a share of the resulting fees.

Confidential Transactions Target Institutional Applications

With Confidential Intents, NEAR is extending its trading infrastructure to support confidential transactions. Trade sizes and other sensitive information no longer have to be fully disclosed publicly, while the technology still allows selective disclosure for compliance purposes. The feature addresses a structural property of public blockchains: transactions are visible on open ledgers by default, a property at odds with trading strategies that depend on keeping position sizes confidential.

In September, NEAR introduced confidential derivatives trading built on the infrastructure of Hyperliquid, a decentralized derivatives exchange. Separately from the derivatives business, the total value locked in Confidential Intents surpassed $70 million, and the official NEAR dashboard now reports approximately $113 million.

The combination of cross-chain trading and confidential execution could prove particularly attractive to institutional market participants. Even so, the integrations announced so far do not yet provide evidence of widespread institutional adoption.

Artificial Intelligence as a Second Growth Driver

In parallel, NEAR is developing NEAR AI, an infrastructure for confidential AI applications and autonomous software agents — programs designed to perform tasks on behalf of users without continuous human oversight. This year's developments include the IronClaw platform and partnerships with Venice AI, Brave and the Government of Bermuda.

Since July, users have also been able to stake NEAR and earn credits for AI computing resources, creating an additional use case for the token. Unlike Intents, however, meaningful public data on revenue, paying customers and actual utilization remains limited, making the segment's economic potential difficult to quantify.

Core Blockchain Activity Remains Limited

Activity on NEAR's underlying blockchain has been less dynamic. Measured against established Layer-1 competitors such as Solana — currently among the most heavily used smart-contract networks — usage remains relatively modest: according to DefiLlama, a widely used DeFi analytics platform, NEAR records around 60,000 daily active addresses, compared with 3.11 million on Solana. NEAR's total value locked (TVL) stands at just 3% of Solana's, while its market capitalization is approximately 8.5% of Solana's.

NEAR Intents now processes around $1.3 billion in weekly trading volume, equivalent to approximately 6–7% of Solana's DEX volume. The comparison is of limited significance, however, as some of these transactions are also executed on Solana. The figures highlight how NEAR's growth is increasingly taking place beyond its traditional Layer-1 activity.

Tokenomics: Lower Inflation and New Token Buybacks

NEAR's tokenomics have also evolved. At the end of 2025, the maximum annual token inflation rate was halved from 5% to 2.5%. Since February, NEAR has additionally been using revenue generated by Intents to buy back tokens on the open market.

The official NEAR dashboard currently reports around $2 million in monthly net revenue, equivalent to approximately $24 million on an annualized basis. Set against a market valuation of roughly $6 billion, this compares with approximately $150 million in new token issuance per year at the maximum inflation rate. Buybacks therefore currently offset only a limited portion of token inflation, although they establish a direct link between the growth of Intents and demand for the NEAR token.

How Much Growth Is Already Priced In?

At a valuation of approximately $6 billion, NEAR currently trades at around 250 times its annualized net revenue, according to the official NEAR dashboard. A substantial portion of its current valuation therefore still depends on future growth.

If Intents were to increase its monthly trading volume from the current $4.3 billion to $40 billion, annualized net revenue could reach approximately $230 million, assuming the ratio between trading volume and total net revenue remains unchanged. That would bring the valuation multiple down to around 26. Such a multiple would be easier to justify for a fast-growing technology platform than today's valuation, but it would require sustained growth and a corresponding increase in revenue over time.

At the same time, the resulting token buybacks could theoretically exceed the value of maximum annual new token issuance. This would significantly reduce inflationary selling pressure, without automatically reducing the total token supply.

Beyond a Traditional Layer-1 Blockchain

NEAR has progressively evolved from a direct competitor to other Layer-1 blockchains into a cross-chain trading infrastructure. With Intents, the network now has a product that processes billions of dollars in trading volume and generates measurable revenue, while NEAR AI opens up additional use cases whose economic significance remains uncertain.

The key to NEAR's future fundamental development will be whether Intents can sustain its growth, secure additional institutional integrations and generate lasting revenue growth. At a valuation of approximately $6 billion, substantial growth expectations are already priced in.

Source: Crypto Valley Journal — https://cryptovalleyjournal.com/focus/blockchain/near-protocol-price-surge-intents