In my previous post on Intents, we looked at how shifting the execution layer from the user to a network of specialized solvers simplifies cross-chain DeFi. Rather than navigating a maze of gas management, bridges, and individual transaction approvals, a user simply signs for their desired outcome and lets the solver market handle the path.

But simplifying the user flow is only half the battle. When every transaction, address, asset amount, and route is broadcast to a public mempool, a new set of problems emerges: frontrunning, MEV extraction, and the full exposure of trading strategies.

This is where confidential execution comes in. If intents make DeFi easier to use, confidential swaps make it safer to use.

NEAR’s Confidential Intents have grown into one of the more active experiments in on-chain privacy. Recently, the protocol launched an incentive program designed to stress-test this privacy layer at scale, offering a share of 333,333 tokens to users once aggregate Confidential Intents TVL reaches $70 million.

How does this privacy infrastructure actually process transactions across dozens of chains without overwhelming users—or developers—with execution complexity?

In public blockchain networks, transaction metadata is heavily leaked. Wallet trackers, copy-traders, and MEV bots scan public RPC endpoints and mempools to frontrun or replicate positions. For individual human users, this is an annoying invasion of privacy; for DAOs, treasury managers, and institutional market makers, it is a structural barrier that leaks sensitive proprietary strategy.

NEAR’s approach to shielding these details relies on running transactions through a dedicated private shard operated by a curated group of validators. This architectural choice shields key parameters:

• Traded amounts

• Swap routes

• Specific wallet addresses

Importantly, this system focuses on confidentiality, not absolute anonymity. Anonymity implies a total lack of identity, which often presents compliance and regulatory hurdles. Confidentiality means that while the underlying compliance and identity frameworks can remain intact, external competitors and frontrunners cannot see your strategy in real-time.

By processing the intent off-chain or inside a shielded environment before settling balances, the transaction is protected from mempool frontrunning.

The growth of NEAR's Confidential Intents reflects a genuine demand for private execution. Since launching publicly in late February 2026, the aggregate Total Value Locked (TVL) in Confidential Intents climbed past $26 million by mid-June 2026, operating across more than 35 different blockchains.

To accelerate this momentum toward institutional scale, NEAR Protocol launched its "70M Milestone" incentive campaign. The rules are simple but structured:

• The Goal: Reach $70 million in aggregate Confidential Intents TVL.

• The Incentive: 333,333 milestone tokens will be unlocked for qualifiers once the target is met.

• The Qualification: To qualify for this first drop, participants must hold $100+ in a confidential balance and execute at least one confidential swap before the TVL threshold is reached.

• The Conversion Rule: The milestone tokens convert to NEAR on a 1:1 basis if NEAR’s volume-weighted average price (VWAP) remains above $3.33 for three consecutive days.

This design aligns user incentives directly with the systemic target. It moves the conversation beyond theoretical privacy toward concrete, load-tested liquidity. A privacy layer that operates in isolation is a niche tool; a confidential execution layer that spans 35+ chains with tens of millions in TVL becomes industry infrastructure.

From a practitioner's perspective, we have to evaluate the structural trade-offs. The private shard model on NEAR uses a permissioned validator set to process confidential transactions rather than an open consensus pool.

Decentralization purists might point to this as a point of friction, but it is a highly practical choice. By utilizing a curated set of validators, NEAR avoids the massive computational and latency overhead associated with generating complex zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs on every single transaction. This keeps execution fast (with block times around 600ms) and costs low, making it viable for active DeFi participants and automated AI agents alike.

As we think about a multi-chain future run by a mix of human DeFi users and autonomous AI agents, privacy isn't just a premium feature—it's a core operational constraint.

If an AI agent is tasked with rebalancing a DAO treasury or managing capital allocation across multiple chains, it cannot afford to broadcast its moves to frontrunners ahead of execution. Intents provide the rails for these agents to specify exact outcomes under strict constraints, but confidentiality provides the shield that makes those operations economically secure.

As Confidential Intents point toward the $70M mark, they are proving that on-chain privacy doesn’t have to mean slow settlement times or fragmented liquidity. It simply means taking the execution complexity off the user's screen and shielding the transaction metadata where it actually matters.