NEAR has crossed $70 million in confidential total value locked, triggering the first milestone under its NEAR@3.33 incentive program.
The milestone automatically activated the first eligibility snapshot and set aside 333,333 tokens for qualifying users.
To take part in the first distribution, users must hold more than $100 in confidential balances and have an active swap history. The rewards will remain locked until NEAR’s three-day volume-weighted average price reaches at least $3.33.
The program also limits each wallet to a maximum of 2% of the total distribution, a measure designed to reduce concentration and spread rewards across a broader group of participants.
NEAR confidential TVL reaches $70 million milestone
The $70 million threshold was reached through Confidential Intents, NEAR’s private execution system for cross-chain transactions.
According to NEAR, the system routes transactions through a private shard, helping keep them away from public mempools.
This is designed to reduce exposure to front-running, strategy leakage and other forms of maximal extractable value, commonly known as MEV.
NEAR says Confidential Intents can support high-volume transactions across multiple blockchains without publicly linking the activity to the party behind the trade.
The network also says the system offers private execution without relying on some of the heavier computational requirements associated with zero-knowledge systems.
Independent tracking data placed confidential TVL at around $70.8 million on September 17, pushing the platform beyond the threshold needed to activate the first phase of the incentive campaign.
First NEAR@3.33 snapshot is now active
Crossing the $70 million mark triggered the first snapshot under the NEAR@3.33 incentive program.
The snapshot determines which users are eligible for the first token allocation.
Participants must meet two main requirements: they must maintain more than $100 in confidential balances and have an active history of swaps.
A total of 333,333 milestone tokens has been allocated for the first distribution.
However, the rewards cannot immediately be converted into NEAR.
They will remain locked until NEAR’s three-day VWAP reaches at least $3.33.
The program also places a 2% limit on the amount any single wallet can receive.
NEAR says this cap is intended to prevent a small number of wallets from dominating the distribution.
Confidential Intents expands across multiple blockchains
NEAR says Confidential Intents currently supports private execution across more than 30 connected blockchains.
Alex Shevchenko, general manager of NEAR Intents, said demand for confidential execution is moving beyond a small niche and becoming more important to the broader crypto industry.
He argued that combining cross-chain liquidity with protections against front-running and strategy leakage could make the system useful for both institutions and decentralized finance users.
For larger market participants, privacy around execution can be particularly important because publicly visible transactions may reveal trading strategies before they are completed.
The $70 million TVL milestone now closes the first phase of the NEAR@3.33 campaign.
NEAR Intents simplifies cross-chain transactions
NEAR has been developing Intents as an abstraction layer designed to make cross-chain activity easier for users and applications.
Instead of manually choosing how assets should move between different blockchain networks, users can specify their desired result.
Specialized participants known as solvers then compete to find and execute the most efficient route.
This approach removes some of the complexity normally involved in using bridges, swapping assets and interacting with multiple blockchain networks.
NEAR has also positioned Intents as infrastructure that could support autonomous AI agents.
These agents may need to make payments, execute trades or move assets across several blockchains without manually managing each network separately.
NEAR Intents continues to generate activity
By June 2026, cumulative fees generated by NEAR Intents had exceeded $35.4 million.
Average daily fees during that month were above $125,000.
The protocol has connected this growth with its longer-term plan to create a shared settlement layer for cross-chain transactions and autonomous software agents.
Confidential Intents builds on that infrastructure by adding privacy to the execution process.
NEAR has also developed privacy-focused tools for areas such as treasury management, payroll, multisig operations and balance management.
These tools are intended to help organizations and users manage on-chain activity without exposing every financial action publicly.
NEAR expands cross-chain integrations
The broader NEAR Intents ecosystem has continued to add blockchain integrations.
An integration with Aptos allowed users to perform one-click transfers involving assets such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP across more than 20 blockchain networks.
Developers can access this functionality through the 1 Click Swap API.
The API allows applications to integrate cross-chain swaps without requiring users to manually use bridges or manage multiple transaction steps.
This infrastructure fits into NEAR’s broader goal of reducing the complexity of interacting with different blockchain ecosystems.
Confidential execution supports NEAR’s AI strategy
Privacy is also becoming an important part of NEAR’s artificial intelligence strategy.
The network argues that autonomous software agents handling payments, trading activity or other financial operations may need to protect sensitive information.
If every transaction is publicly visible, an AI agent’s strategy, user information or financial activity could potentially be exposed.
Confidential execution is designed to reduce that risk.
NEAR has increasingly connected its blockchain infrastructure with AI-focused products intended to support autonomous agents and private digital services.
NEAR introduces staking-based AI payments
In July, NEAR introduced a staking-based payment system for its AI platform.
The system allows users to lock NEAR tokens and receive monthly compute credits.
Unlike a traditional payment model, the staked tokens are not spent.
Users can recover their tokens once they decide to unstake them.
At launch, the platform supported 43 AI models, including models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google.
NEAR said the system allows users to access confidential AI inference and hosted autonomous agents without using a credit card or maintaining a traditional cloud billing account.
Privacy tools extend beyond blockchain transactions
NEAR has also introduced automatic anonymization for personally identifiable information contained in prompts sent to closed AI models.
The system is designed to remove sensitive information before those prompts reach external inference infrastructure.
This approach reflects NEAR’s wider strategy of combining privacy with AI and blockchain infrastructure.
The network has also continued upgrading its core technology.
A network upgrade released in June introduced dynamic resharding, which allows blockchain capacity to adjust as transaction demand changes.
The same upgrade also introduced post-quantum secure signatures as part of NEAR’s longer-term security improvements.
NEAR’s $70M milestone signals growing demand for privacy
The rise in confidential TVL to more than $70 million shows increasing use of NEAR’s privacy-focused cross-chain infrastructure.
The milestone has now triggered the first NEAR@3.33 snapshot and reserved 333,333 tokens for qualifying users.
With Confidential Intents already connected to more than 30 blockchains, NEAR is positioning the platform as infrastructure for private cross-chain transactions, decentralized finance and autonomous AI agents.
The next step for participants will depend partly on NEAR’s market price.
Rewards from the first milestone will remain locked until the token’s three-day VWAP reaches at least $3.33.
