$NEAR Skyrockets Nearly 80% as Near Protocol Expands Privacy-Focused Trading

Near Protocol's native token $NEAR surged nearly 80% over the past week, outperforming the broader cryptocurrency market. The token traded around $4.29 on Monday, up about 78.2% from seven days prior and 22% in the last 24 hours, according to CoinGecko.

The growth comes as Near Protocol expands its privacy-focused trading services, including confidential perpetual futures trading through near.com. On Thursday, the platform said deposits and withdrawals for this feature were now confidential by default, obscuring the link between a trader's funding wallet and their Hyperliquid trading account.

Near's confidential total value locked (TVL) on near.com crossed $70 million, triggering the first snapshot under its $NEAR@3.33 incentive program. The program allocated 333,333 milestone tokens for the first distribution, which will unlock and convert to $NEAR when its three-day volume-weighted average price reaches at least $3.33.