Near Launches Universal Send For Confidential Payments

NEAR Protocol has taken its privacy infrastructure a step further with the launch of Universal Send, a feature that brings confidential payments to users across its ecosystem. The rollout means that $NEAR users can send assets to anyone, in any token, across multiple blockchains, with transaction details kept private by default.

How Universal Send Works

The feature lets users scan a QR code and pay with whatever assets they hold. NEAR's new confidential payments feature handles cross-chain routing automatically, so the recipient gets the asset they want regardless of what the sender started with, and no manual bridging is required. Transactions move supported assets across chains without exposing the full sender path to public blockchain observers.

Universal Send is a product extension of NEAR Intents, the cross-chain interoperability system. Built on NEAR Intents infrastructure, Near(.)com unifies cross-chain activity into a single account, enabling users to swap assets, execute confidential transactions, and trade peer-to-peer across more than 35 blockchains.

Privacy, Compliance, and the Agentic Economy

Unlike fully opaque privacy protocols that have faced regulatory scrutiny, Confidential Intents supports selective disclosure, allowing enterprises to keep sensitive data confidential from the public while still providing auditable execution for regulators or internal compliance teams.

NEAR says this makes the wallet more practical not only for individuals and businesses, but also for AI agents that may need to transact without revealing strategy or sensitive data. NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin has positioned confidential settlement as essential infrastructure as autonomous agents handle more on-chain transactions.

Confidential Accounts provide restricted transaction visibility to help mitigate front-running and MEV while enabling compliance-aware execution for institutions. This confidentiality layer enables institutional players to manage cross-chain positions with control, allowing institutional capital to flow on-chain without sacrificing discretion.

Sources:
Yahoo Finance: NEAR Unveils Universal Send for Confidential Cross-Chain Payments
PR Newswire: NEAR Unveils Confidential Cross-Chain Infrastructure for the Agentic Economy
CoinDesk: NEAR Launches Near.com Super App Touting AI Capabilities and Confidential Transactions