Why does the NEAR intent layer generate $400,000 daily, yet the L1 mainnet still remain "hungry"?

Author: Frank, PANews

The NEAR Intents activity has recently surged, with daily transaction volume soaring to over $200 million, and the resulting fees once exceeded $400,000. Based on this data, its transaction volume ranks only below Ethereum, Solana, and BSC among popular public chains, and its fee levels also place it in the top five across all chains.

This “data” boom not only brings NEAR back into the mainstream narrative after a long silence but also raises the question: Will NEAR rise again because of this? However, what exactly are these $400,000 in “fees,” and can they truly support NEAR’s “resurgence”?

NEAR Intents Rise: Data Explosion Driven by Privacy Coins

To understand this data explosion, first, we must clarify what NEAR Intents actually are.

NEAR Intents (Intent Layer) is a new type of transaction infrastructure launched by the NEAR protocol starting November 2024. NEAR Intents is one of the three core technological components of NEAR’s abstract architecture. As a decentralized cross-chain system, NEAR Intents allows users to express desired outcomes (e.g., “swap token A for token B at the best price”) without specifying technical details. Then, a solver network competes to fulfill these intents in the most optimal way, handling complex cross-chain operations in the background.

This product changes the traditional cross-chain process, which requires users to be familiar with multiple on-chain operations, precisely calculate fees, and find the best exchanges. It can also integrate AI agents for transaction optimization, greatly streamlining cross-chain operations and saving fees.

In practice, NEAR Intents has maintained daily transaction volumes of several million dollars since its launch until September this year. In October, with the explosion of privacy coins, a large influx of funds was directed toward ZEC. People discovered that NEAR Intents seemed to be the best channel to access ZEC, making ZEC trading the primary use case for NEAR Intents.

On-chain data shows that starting in October, ZEC transactions on NEAR Intents surged. On October 1, the transaction volume reached $5.9 million, second only to Ethereum. By November 4, this grew to $23.9 million, and on November 7, it hit $40 million, contributing nearly one-third of the total transaction volume. Meanwhile, cross-chain transactions on Ethereum also increased significantly. Driven together, NEAR Intents’ transaction volume continued to rise.

Among all channels, SwapKit stands out, contributing $4.32 million in fees, accounting for over 70%. SwapKit is a B2B aggregator integrated into major wallets like Trust Wallet. However, this $4.32 million in revenue is only generated by the solver behind SwapKit.

“Bustling Shops” vs. “Quiet Malls”

The rise of NEAR Intents seems to bring new hope to NEAR. Many believe that if NEAR Intents can maintain its current revenue levels and these fees are redistributed or used for token buybacks similar to Hyperliquid, it could significantly improve NEAR’s tokenomics.

But this seems unlikely.

Firstly, in terms of relationships, NEAR as an L1 blockchain is the underlying infrastructure, while NEAR Intents is a protocol layer built on top of NEAR L1, providing “chain abstraction” services through NEAR’s infrastructure. This relationship is like a popular shop inside a mall—its revenue doesn’t directly count as the mall’s revenue.

Moreover, most of NEAR Intents’ income is captured by third-party “solvers” and market makers (MMs). The NEAR mainnet only collects gas fees for on-chain transactions, which are related to transaction count, not transaction value.

As of November 9, NEAR Intents had generated 7.16 million transactions. Based on NEAR’s current gas prices, these transactions might have only generated around $2,000 in gas fees. Additionally, according to NEAR’s fee structure, 70% of fees are burned.

This explains why, despite the lively activity on NEAR Intents, NEAR’s on-chain fees remain around a few thousand dollars daily.

“AI Narrative” Gains Validation, NEAR Still Faces Decline

If these $400,000 in fees are almost unrelated to NEAR’s revenue, does the rise of NEAR Intents “serve no purpose”? Objectively, its significance isn’t in immediate income but in strategic validation and future potential.

Strategically, the rise of NEAR Intents strongly validates NEAR’s “chain abstraction” vision. It proves the technology is feasible and that there is a genuine market demand for frictionless multi-chain experiences. Currently, NEAR Intents is mainly used in DeFi, but its long-term goal is to expand into Web2 or real-world applications—such as “help me book a flight” or “buy a pizza” (official examples)—where the solver network finds the best solution and executes it. This vision is similar to the popular X402 protocol narrative. AI, as a major narrative in NEAR’s ecosystem in recent years, has finally produced a potential industry leader.

Looking at other data, NEAR’s performance still leaves much to be desired. Its mainnet TVL ranks 42nd, with only $133 million, and has been declining in recent years. Daily active users are around 2.9 million, down from 4 million at the start of the year. With low on-chain activity, NEAR’s token performance has hovered at the bottom range.

Perhaps to boost market sentiment, in October, the NEAR Foundation and ecosystem members proposed reducing the maximum inflation rate from 5% to 2.5%. However, as of now, this proposal has only received about 60% support from nodes, below the 80% threshold needed for approval under NEAR’s governance rules.

However, some industry experts remain optimistic about NEAR from a technical perspective. Andy, founder of the well-known crypto podcast The Rollup, tweeted that he is optimistic about the future development of Starknet, NEAR, and ZEC, especially regarding zero-knowledge proofs, intent architecture, and privacy technology.

For now, even if the actual revenue from NEAR Intents is modest, its popularity at least brings some discussion and attention to NEAR. For the NEAR ecosystem, traffic and attention may be the most valuable resources at this stage.