NEAR Intents crosses $20B in cross-chain volume, doubling since February

@NEARProtocol's Intents platform has crossed $20 billion in all-time cross-chain volume, with roughly half of that total generated since February 2026. Independent on-chain data tracked the climb in real time: Dune Analytics registered the $10 billion milestone in January 2026, and the pace has accelerated sharply since. According to Dune Analytics data, NEAR Intents has processed roughly $19 billion to $20 billion in cumulative volume and generated around $32 million to $40 million in fees.

How Chain Signatures Power the Network

The engine behind the volume growth is Chain Signatures, NEAR's bridgeless cross-chain execution layer. Chain Signatures enable NEAR accounts, including smart contracts, to sign transactions for any blockchain, powered by a decentralised MPC network that uses NEAR staking and EigenLayer ETH restakers for security. In practical terms, users can request a desired outcome, such as swapping USDC on Ethereum for SOL on Solana, while third-party solvers execute the transaction behind the scenes. Native tokens stay on their native blockchain, trades are atomic across chains, settlement takes roughly two seconds, and any token on any chain is supported.

The technology has attracted a growing list of integrations. Ledger, Brave, and wallets such as Zashi (the Zcash mobile wallet) have all adopted the stack, feeding NEAR's broader positioning as settlement infrastructure for the emerging AI agent economy. Brave adopted NEAR AI Cloud for verifiable privacy, while NEAR also joined NVIDIA's Inception Program for startup acceleration. On the institutional side, the Bitwise NEAR Staking ETP, listed in Europe, reached approximately $40 million in assets under management and recorded $7 million in inflows in a single week.

Fee Mechanics and What Comes Next

The volume figures carry tokenomic weight beyond headline numbers. NEAR Intents fees operate so that 100% of fees generated through the protocol are used to purchase $NEAR directly, creating market buy pressure that scales with transaction volume. NEAR's inflation rate was permanently reduced from 5% to 2.5% in October 2025, and the fee conversion mechanism activated for the first time in February 2026, routing all Intents fees into $NEAR purchases.

Looking ahead, investors are watching a network upgrade scheduled for June 2026 that introduces dynamic resharding, a mechanism that automatically splits network shards as transaction demand rises, improving the chain's ability to handle high volumes without manual intervention. With volume doubling in roughly four months and fee economics now active, the protocol's next test is whether it can sustain that trajectory as the multi-chain and AI agent narratives continue to develop.

Sources:
NEAR Intents Achieves $10B in Swap Volume (Yahoo Finance / Coinspeaker)
NEAR Price Rally Gains Momentum on Cross-Chain Activity (CoinDesk)
Chain Signatures Launch (NEAR Protocol Official Blog)