NEAR Protocol has staged a powerful breakout, climbing from $2.34 on September 15 to $3.45 on September 18—a gain of more than 45% in three days. Over the past 24 hours alone, NEAR advanced roughly 25% from $2.60 to $3.39, while trading volume jumped 120% to $1.24 billion and its market capitalization rose from about $3.22 billion to $4.46 billion.
The rally comes despite macro uncertainty after the Clarity Act failed its Senate vote, a development that many expected to trigger a bearish reaction. Instead, Bitcoin held near $77,200 and Ethereum traded around $2,400, with analysts suggesting both could target $88,000 and $3,000 respectively. Crypto analyst Michaël van de Poppe said NEAR’s chart was “absolutely phenomenal,” adding that it was “just a matter of time” before the token reaches $5 as it approaches key resistance.
A major driver is NEAR’s launch of confidential perpetual trading powered by Hyperliquid. Users can open leveraged positions up to 40x across more than 50 markets, with trade details, entry prices, and direction hidden inside NEAR’s private shard. The system runs on NEAR Intents, which supports deposits from over 35 blockchains and routes trades without requiring users to move assets manually between wallets.
Near.com also launched a “Push to $3.33” incentive program, distributing 333,333 milestone tokens to users holding more than $100 in a confidential account and completing at least one confidential swap. The tokens convert to NEAR at a 1:1 ratio only when the three-day volume-weighted average price reaches or stays at $3.33, putting the reward pool at roughly $1.11 million while limiting immediate sell pressure.
On-chain activity is backing the move. NEAR Intents generated $5.01 million in total fees over the past 30 days, retaining $1.58 million in net revenue. Total value locked in Secret Mode crossed $70 million. On September 9, dormant wallets bought $33.37 million in ETH via CowSwap and converted 2,500 ETH into 6,601 ZEC through NEAR Intents, paying 16.75 ETH in fees. Hyperliquid, which handles derivatives execution behind the product, processed roughly $240 billion in perpetual volume over 30 days, and Payward, the parent company of Kraken, announced plans to launch on-chain perpetuals via Hyperliquid for U.S. customers.
The broader backdrop includes a U.S. SEC five-year conditional exemption announced to allow regulated venues and liquidity providers to facilitate on-chain trading of tokenized U.S. stocks, reinforcing the tokenization narrative. NEAR Protocol has also positioned itself around chain abstraction, cross-chain liquidity, AI agents, and tokenized assets, with NEAR AI working on confidential AI infrastructure and Chain Signatures allowing applications on NEAR to interact with assets and accounts across other blockchains.
