NEAR Protocol has launched confidential perpetual futures trading, making private funding the default option for users accessing the product through near.com and perps.near.com. The system pairs NEAR’s privacy layer with Hyperliquid’s order book and liquidity, allowing traders to open leveraged positions without publicly linking them to specific wallets.

How the Confidential Trading System Operates

Order books remain fully public, consistent with standard decentralized perpetual platforms. Privacy applies at the funding stage. Deposits that open positions route through Confidential Intents, a private shard linked to the main chain via a TEE-based bridge. This design prevents outsiders from easily tracing a position back to a particular wallet or identity.

Users sign in with a passkey rather than a seed phrase. They can fund positions with assets from more than 30 supported blockchains. NEAR Intents automatically converts those assets into the margin currency, typically USDC. The confidential path is now the default when opening a position. Trades settle against Hyperliquid’s order book, giving access to more than 50 markets with leverage of up to 40x. Users retain control of their funds because transactions are signed on their own devices.

Confidential total value locked reached approximately $70 million around the time of the launch. The feature forms part of NEAR’s wider Confidential Intents stack, which already supports private deposits, swaps, transfers and withdrawals.

Hyperliquid Provides the Execution Layer

NEAR did not build a new order book. Instead, the network connected its confidential funding layer directly to Hyperliquid, currently one of the largest decentralized perpetual venues by trading volume. Hyperliquid supplies deep liquidity and tight spreads while NEAR manages identity shielding on the front end.

This arrangement differs from fully transparent platforms such as GMX, dYdX and Hyperliquid’s native interface, where funding and account activity are visible on-chain. NEAR’s model keeps settlement verifiable on a public order book while shielding the funding step, creating a middle ground between complete transparency and fully private systems.

Market Response and Token Price Movement

The NEAR token rose sharply following the announcement. Reports showed gains ranging from roughly 21% to more than 30% within 24 hours, with the price moving into the $2.98 to $3.50 range depending on the exact timing of data. Trading volume expanded significantly, climbing more than 120% in one reading and exceeding $1.2 billion to nearly $1.9 billion in others. Market capitalization moved into the $3.9 billion to $4.58 billion range.

Hyperliquid’s own token also advanced amid related developments, including plans by Payward, the parent company of Kraken, to introduce Hyperliquid-based perpetual futures for U.S. customers through a CFTC-regulated structure.

Privacy Features and Access Limits

The launch addresses common concerns for larger traders and institutions on public decentralized venues, including front-running by bots, strategy copying and potential targeting of liquidation levels. NEAR’s approach aims to combine elements of centralized-exchange privacy with non-custodial blockchain settlement.

Access remains restricted in the United States and Canada for regulatory reasons. Perpetual futures involve substantial risk because leverage can amplify both gains and losses, and positions stay visible on the public order book even under the new funding model.

NEAR positions the product as one component of a broader privacy-focused execution environment that may later expand to additional assets, real-world asset activity and AI-agent transactions across chains.