NEAR Protocol

Near Protocol has launched the industry's first "confidential by default" perpetual contract trading on near.com, partnering with Hyperliquid, which serves as the core layer for execution and liquidity. Users can access more than 50 perpetual markets with leverage of up to 40x. The feature conceals all contract positions, including asset type, size, entry time, and trading direction, helping reduce the risks of front-running, strategy copying, and forced liquidations. This Perps trading runs on a multi-chain Confidential Intents pipeline, which has just reached a milestone of 70 million dollars in total locked asset value, and the network's USDC integration also enables payments between AI agents using stablecoins. However, this confidential Perps trading remains restricted in the United States and Canada for regulatory reasons. After the launch, NEAR surged 21.36% intraday, pulling back to trade at 3.21 dollars, while HYPE rose 10.82%, pulling back to trade at 86.72 dollars, after Payward, the parent company of Kraken, announced plans to bring Hyperliquid into the US market.

NEAR Protocol is demonstrating strength as it tries to reclaim the critical $2.00 level, while XRP remains stuck in a larger bearish structure and is still having trouble below important resistance levels.

NEAR Protocol gained 115% in May 2026, driven by its role in building infrastructure for AI agents that can autonomously execute financial transactions. The protocol's Intents product has processed over 25 million transactions totaling more than $20 billion since its launch in the first quarter of 2025, according to crypto management firm Grayscale, with $70 million in agentic transactions recorded in a recent 24-hour period. NEAR's architecture includes privacy infrastructure through its IronClaw framework and private inference capabilities, which keep financial data and credentials encrypted—an advantage over larger platforms like Ethereum and Solana. Despite the price spike attracting speculative interest, the author suggests waiting for the excitement to cool before committing significant capital, while acknowledging that a small speculative position may be warranted for those who believe in the AI agent thesis.