NEAR confidential perps went live this week, and the token exploded 22% to reclaim the $3 level. The new product lets traders open perpetual futures positions without publicly linking trades to their accounts. Hyperliquid provides the perp markets under the hood, while NEAR Intents routes orders through a private shard that hides position size, entry levels, and trading activity from public explorers.
That’s the news. Now the fun part: NEAR sits in my crypto shopping list as one of my smaller positions, and I started DCAing in early August around the $1.60 zone. Two months later, the position has nearly doubled. Let’s break down the launch, the chart, and why the small bags are outrunning the big ones.
What NEAR Launched This Week
Perpetual positions on near.com are now confidential by default. You trade perps as usual, but the details never hit the public ledger. The setup runs on NEAR Intents with a dedicated private shard, secured by a TEE-based bridge to mainnet. Funding works from over 35 blockchains, so you don’t need assets on NEAR itself to open a position.
Hyperliquid powers the actual perp markets behind the product. The venue did roughly $240 billion in perp volume over the past 30 days, more than every other chain combined, so NEAR plugged into the deepest liquidity available on-chain.
Why does privacy matter for perps? Anyone who follows on-chain trading knows the answer. Public positions get hunted. Whales get front-run, copy-traded, and liquidated by traders who can see exactly where their stops sit. Even hackers understand the value of Hyperliquid’s rails, as we covered when Lazarus traded on Hyperliquid. Confidential positions remove that entire attack surface.
The momentum around Hyperliquid keeps building beyond NEAR too. Kraken’s parent company Payward announced plans this week to deploy on-chain perps on Hyperliquid for eligible US clients through CFTC-regulated partners. That’s a big step for a market we analyzed in is Hyperliquid legal in the US. Regulated American perp flow routing through Hyperliquid infrastructure was a meme two years ago. Now it’s a press release.
The NEAR Chart: From $1.60 to $3
Look at the 4-hour chart. My DCA started in early August, right in the accumulation range around $1.56 support. Price chopped sideways for weeks, printed a higher low, broke structure to the upside, and never looked back. Today it trades at $3.02 on Bybit perps.
This is a textbook example of what we teach in the market structure guide: accumulation at support, a shift in structure, then trend continuation with higher lows the whole way up. No leverage needed, no perfect entry needed. Just a plan and patience.
The fundamentals backed the move before the perps launch. NEAR’s confidential TVL hit $70 million on September 15, triggering the NEAR@3.33 snapshot, and the ecosystem had been ramping up privacy features all year. The perps launch was the catalyst that lit the fuse.
The Shopping List Is Printing
In July I published my full allocation for this cycle: 40% BTC, 20% HYPE, 10% SOL, 5% ZEC, 5% NEAR, and 20% dry powder. The logic on NEAR was simple. I wanted one AI narrative coin going into the bull market, and NEAR was my pick.
Here’s the part that makes me smile. My two smallest positions are my two biggest winners. ZEC broke $1,200 and flipped HYPE into the top 10, and now NEAR has nearly doubled from my entries. Both are outperforming my BTC, SOL, and HYPE bags by a wide margin.
Is that skill? Partly. Both picks were deliberate narrative bets: privacy for ZEC, AI for NEAR. Funny enough, the two narratives are now merging, with NEAR shipping the biggest privacy product of the week. When regulations tighten and surveillance grows, private trading rails become a magnet for capital. I positioned for that thesis at 10% combined, and it’s carrying the portfolio.
The lesson isn’t “small caps good.” The lesson is that a written plan with clear reasoning beats vibes. I didn’t chase NEAR at $3. My entries were sitting there from August because the plan said so.
The Macro Backdrop: A Fed Hike and a Failed Bill
This rally is even more impressive against the macro. The Fed hiked 25 basis points on September 16, the first rate increase since July 2023, taking the target range to 3.75%–4.00% on a unanimous 12-0 vote. The dot plot showed 16 of 18 officials expect at least one more hike, with four penciling in two. Hot inflation prints forced their hand: August CPI came in at 3.4% year over year, well above target.
Rate hikes drain liquidity from risk assets, and crypto usually bleeds first. We broke down the full fallout in our Fed rate hike 2026 coverage. Add the Clarity Act failing to pass, which removed a major regulatory tailwind, and you get the bearish market backdrop we’ve been trading through all month.
Against that backdrop, NEAR ripping 22% tells you the demand is real. Coins that pump on hike days are showing relative strength, and relative strength is exactly what I want to see in my holdings. For the trend to continue, NEAR needs to reclaim $3.50 and hold it. Lose $2.80 and I expect a retest of the breakout zone first.
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Final Words
Confidential perps are a genuinely new primitive, and NEAR shipped it with the best perp liquidity in crypto behind it. Whether the token holds $3 or retraces, the product answers a real problem that every serious trader has felt: the whole world watching your positions.
For my portfolio, this is the shopping list working as designed. Small, deliberate narrative bets doing the heavy lifting while the core positions grind. I’m not adding at $3, and I’m not selling either. The DCA schedule runs until the plan says otherwise.
Nobody knows if this is the start of the next leg or a headline pump that fades. That’s fine. I don’t need to know. I need my average entry in the bottom zone, and it’s there.
See you in the next one.
FAQ
What are NEAR confidential perps?
Perpetual futures on NEAR that hide your position size, entries, and trading activity from public blockchains. Trades route through a private shard via NEAR Intents, while Hyperliquid provides the underlying perp markets.
Why is NEAR price up today?
The confidential perps launch triggered a 22% rally that pushed NEAR back above $3. Confidential TVL reaching $70 million and broader Hyperliquid momentum added fuel.
Does Hyperliquid power NEAR’s perps?
Yes. NEAR provides the private front-end and cross-chain routing through NEAR Intents, while Hyperliquid supplies the perpetual futures markets and liquidity.
Is now a good time to buy NEAR?
Chasing a 22% pump is rarely the plan. I built my position through DCA from the $1.60 zone starting in August. Build your own plan with defined entries instead of buying green candles.
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