Hassan Maishera
On Wednesday, the NEAR Protocol announced via X that NEAR Intents is now bringing multichain asset flow to ShieldSwap.
Shield Swap is working with NEAR Intents to make it easier for market participants to move assets across blockchain networks and trade without exposing their activity inside the venue to the public market.
NEAR Intents is a multichain transaction protocol that allows users to specify the outcome they want, and competing solvers quote the execution. That removes much of the work normally involved in moving assets across chains.
Participants do not need to choose a bridge, build a route, or manage gas tokens across several networks. They choose the asset they want to move and the result they want to receive. Solvers handle the route and compete on price.
Shield Swap takes a similar approach to confidential trading. Participants are able to execute a trade without publishing their identity, holdings, and strategy to the market. This is difficult to achieve on a transparent blockchain.
Wallet addresses are persistent identifiers, and positions can be reconstructed from transaction history. Over time, trades reveal patterns that other market participants can use against the trader.
Transactions on origin networks remain visible. Confidentiality begins when assets are shielded within Shield Swap. This gives participants access to liquidity across networks without carrying public transaction history into every trade they make afterward.
NEAR Protocol is a decentralized application platform designed to make apps similarly usable to those on today’s web. The network runs on a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism called Nightshade, which aims to provide dynamic scalability and stabilize fees.
NEAR combines three core elements: User-Owned AI, which ensures agents act in users’ best interests; Intents and Chain Abstraction, which eliminate blockchain complexity for seamless, goal-driven transactions across chains; and a sharded blockchain architecture that delivers the scalability, speed, and low-cost execution needed for real-world AI and Web3 use.
NEAR Protocol is unique because it was purpose-built for AI from day one—not retrofitted after the fact. Founded by AI researchers, its architecture was designed to support intelligent systems at scale. With Nightshade sharding, NEAR can handle billions of transactions without congestion or rising fees. Developers can build using familiar languages like JavaScript and Rust, onboard users without wallets, and tap into other blockchains without bridges through Chain Signatures and NEAR Intents. Its progressive security model, low-predictable fees, and native support for AI agents make NEAR the most practical blockchain for building the next generation of autonomous applications.
NEAR is trading at $2.43, up 0.4% in the last 24 hours.
