The general idea of “intents” is a way for a user to specify the outcome they want without needing to specify exactly how it will be achieved. This applies to states on different chains or offchain (buy a bike or build a house). 

Intents are an incredibly powerful primitive that not only unlock a range of new use cases that haven’t been possible before, but also bring our space closer to serving as a global market. Another way to think about it is a unified liquidity layer. This post, the first in a series on intents, will unpack how NEAR Intents work and offer some examples. 

What are NEAR Intents? 

Intents are a new type of transaction on NEAR. Traditionally, transactions prescribe exact actions to be taken: call this smart contract, send this asset. Instead, intents provide a way to agree on a result and let some other actor figure out how to achieve this result.

Often in Web3, intents are only used in the context of simple swaps, which is an easy use case. In the case of NEAR Intents, use cases span from onchain trading to ordering something online from an e-commerce store to getting an AI agent to run a marketing campaign to getting a person to do something in the real world.  The participants on both sides of an intent could be a person or an AI agent. 

NEAR Intents are part of the core NEAR Protocol, building upon both Chain Signatures for multichain functionality and sharding for scalability. Any application can integrate intents to enable easy interactions for users . The user puts out an intent, their app frontend gets some options to fulfill it and chooses the best option for the user, and the intent commitment gets settled onchain. This intent commitment is functionally a legal agreement that is enforceable on the blockchain, which ensures that the commitment and all parties’ obligations are fulfilled, and if something goes wrong, a pre-agreed dispute process will help to resolve it. The Intents system connects requests with fulfillment via solvers––by human or agent, fiat or crypto. 

How do NEAR Intents work?

NEAR Intents is an interactive sub-protocol that consists of the following steps:

• Advertising intent
• Collecting quotes/options
• Committing to a specific option
• Settlement of the commitment onchain
• Finalization
• (optionally) dispute & resolution

Advertising intent. An intent starts with the user or another actor defining the outcome they want to achieve and advertising it to the solvers. There are different ways to advertise: everything from broadcasting to the whole network, using a specific intent orderbook, or sending their intent directly to specific parties. Examples of an intent advertisement would be, “swap 100k USDC to BTC” or “buy a pepperoni pizza.”

Collecting quotes/options. Counter-parties that received the intent can respond with their options on how they would fulfill it. This fulfillment can be the final outcome (you get 1BTC) or just a fee for executing a set of actions (run a marketing campaign for $10k). The user’s application collects these options and can either directly decide on the best one or can surface it to the user to choose (i.e. here are different restaurants that make pizza).

Committing to a specific option. When an option gets selected, the user’s wallet signs this option, creating a commitment. This commitment can be multi-party if the option contains a number of parties working together to deliver the outcome.

Settlement of the commitment onchain. After the commitment is made, it settles onchain. This is when solvers can start executing on the proposed plan.

Finalization. This step happens when the counterparty/ies have finished executing. For example, the pizza was delivered, tokens were swapped, or multi-hop onchain actions were executed.

Dispute. If the user is not satisfied with the outcome, they can initiate a dispute. For example, the pizza hasn’t really arrived even though the solver indicated that it’s finalized. The type of dispute mechanism is defined by the option & commitment created by the solver and user in the first place. If the parties agreed ahead of time, the intent commitment can be considered a legal contract (terms of service) and interpreted by AI or a traditional legal system in order to decide on disputes.

There are a number of mechanisms by which intents can be advertised to solvers:

• Broadcast to all solvers: best price discovery
• Centralized order book: inserting intent into an order book to which solvers subscribe
• Individual trade exchange: directly communicating with another party to ask for interest in the trade (can be done via email or messenger)
• Onchain: post intent directly onchain

Solvers can decide to participate or not in any individual intent. This means they can check the source of funds, KYC / KYB of the intent initiator, or any other property they think is relevant before offering their option. This is especially important when dealing with fiat currencies to ensure compliance.

This process essentially models the majority of economic activity that is currently happening onchain and in the real world. The fact that intent advertising and collecting options are offchain removes the majority of traditional issues creating complexity in blockchains such as MEV, trading latency, and others. Solvers can be arbitrarily scaled with demand in order to respond to a bombardment of requests, which also solves the scalability challenges of trading popular assets onchain. Then intent commitments can be settled on the sharded NEAR blockchain, allowing for a highly scalable global market experience that seamlessly works across crypto, fiat, and real world use cases.

Start Using NEAR Intents

Intents as a new type of transaction on NEAR open a way to transition traffic from CEXs and more traditional real world markets to leverage highly efficient blockchain trading. Intents address existing challenges with the scalability of asset trading inside AMM pools as well, opening up a much broader programming model when combined with AI. Stay tuned for the next post in this series, which will expand on how Intents are used by AI agents.

To get started on building with NEAR Intents, head to the documentation page and join the NEAR Intents support TG.

The post Unpacking NEAR Intents: A Deep Dive appeared first on NEAR Protocol.

Despite their potential, most AI agents today remain centralized, custodial, or unverified, limiting their ability to securely manage assets or handle sensitive data. Some teams have attempted to mitigate this through Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs), a type of secure hardware enclave, but these approaches still introduce single points of failure, either through centralized key management services or the risk of key loss within the TEE itself.

With recent advancements on NEAR, fully autonomous and verifiable AI agents are now possible.

Shade Agents

Shade Agents are multichain AI-powered smart contracts that are fully verified on-chain and designed to eliminate single points of failure. Using NEAR’s Chain Signatures for decentralized key management, Shade Agents leverage worker agents running in Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) to securely access off-chain data and execute decisions using advanced AI models.

Shade Agents can:

• Sign transactions on every chain
• Custody and trade any cryptoasset
• Access off-chain LLMs, APIs, data, computation, and storage
• Enable a decentralized group of worker agents to collectively control the same key via Chain Signatures
• Preserve privacy

How They Work

Each shade agent has two components: a worker agent and a smart contract. 

Worker agents are verified off-chain components. These agents can interact with any data source, query AI models (including private LLMs), and propose transactions on any blockchain.

Anyone can run a given worker agent by building and deploying the correct codebase within a TEE, generating a unique keypair, and submitting a proof (remote attestation) by calling the shade agent’s smart contract. 

The smart contract stores the expected code hash of the worker agent. When a new worker agent instance submits a proof, the smart contract verifies the proof by checking the TEE signatures, then confirms whether the worker agent code hash is correct.

Once registered, the worker agent can propose transactions to the contract. The contract, using Chain Signatures, enables a decentralized group of worker agents to collectively control the same key, on various blockchains. 

This is extremely powerful, as it removes the risk of key loss or compromise from utilizing a single TEE.

DAOs can manage the worker agent code hash stored in the smart contract, following an upgrade protocol to update the worker agent’s AI models, off-chain computation, and data collection.

Full Autonomy

Shade agents will power autonomous applications without intermediaries. 

For developers, Shade Agents introduce intelligence to applications and protocols without requiring human intervention—whether in DeFi, social applications, or Web2 use cases that demand privacy and verification. You can build agents that manage assets, make decisions, and interact with any smart contract on any chain, while adhering to predefined rules enforced by the NEAR blockchain.

For end users, Shade Agents provide verifiable and private automation, without needing to review every agent transaction or delegate keys to a third party. Whether managing portfolios, optimizing yields, or executing tasks autonomously, users can benefit from trustless financial interactions that are more efficient, private, and secure.

Here are some examples of possible use cases for shade agents:

Mindshare Trading Agent

• Tracks mindshare metrics like Kaito
• Makes trading decisions based on model results
• Executes trades between assets on various chains: BTC, XRP, SOL, ETH, HYPE

Decentralized Solvers

• Accepts asset deposits on any chain
• Utilizes off-chain data to fulfill user intents
• Rebalances across all major DEXs, bridges, etc

Prediction Market for Anything

• Market creators define resolution criteria and sources
• Worker agents query sources, vote on resolution
• Resolves immediately, no need for challenge periods

Lending Optimizers

• Accepts asset deposits on any chain
• Matches borrow requests instantly, at better rate than any pool-based lender (by using midpoint rate between borrow and lend rates on pool-based protocols)
• Rebalances between various pool-based products to optimize both borrow and lend rates

Twitter Bet Escrow

• User can propose a bet to another user with odds
• Worker agents create a market, define resolution criteria
• Both users deposit funds into contract, worker agents resolve market

The Future of Autonomous AI

This is just the beginning. In the NEAR future, we expect to see:

• AI-driven hedge funds: autonomous AI managing billions in capital
• Agent-based DAOs: governance will move from slow, manual votes to AI-driven, real-time decision making
• Autonomous businesses: AI agents will hire, allocate capital, and operate self-sustaining organizations. 

Shade Agents introduce a new paradigm where AI-powered software can not only analyze and reason but also execute, transact, and manage assets in a fully decentralized and trustless manner.

Ready to build the future of autonomous AI? Start developing with Shade Agents today.

Build A Shade Agent 

Developer resources:

• Shade Agent docs
• GitHub template for deploying a Shade Agent
• Chain Signatures docs
• Private ML/SDK

Potential Support:

• Builder Interest Form
• Announcement of $20 million fund AI Agents by NEAR Foundation
• Strategic support from DWF for Near AI Agents

Disclaimer:
This blog post discusses concepts and potential applications of “Shade Agents” technology, which is under development. The information provided is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice, investment advice, or legal advice. There is no guarantee that the described functionalities will be fully realized, and the technology may be subject to changes, updates, or even discontinuation. Trading cryptocurrencies and engaging with decentralized applications involves significant risk, including the potential loss of principal. Readers should perform their own due diligence, consult with qualified financial and legal professionals, and fully understand the risks before participating in any related activities. near.org and its affiliates disclaim any liability for losses or damages arising from reliance on the information in this blog post or the use of “Shade Agents” technology. Links to external resources are provided for convenience and do not constitute endorsement.

The post Shade Agents: The First Truly Autonomous AI Agents appeared first on NEAR Protocol.

Expanding the NEAR Ecosystem

OmniBridge represents a significant expansion of NEAR’s cross-chain capabilities beyond the existing Ethereum-focused Rainbow Bridge. This new infrastructure:

• Establishes NEAR as a unified liquidity hub, enabling tokens to launch on any supported chain with NEAR as the underlying LP token
• Creates canonical pathways for asset flows between NEAR and major ecosystems, including Ethereum, Solana, Arbitrum, Base, and Bitcoin
• Enhances capital efficiency in cross-chain liquidity provision, reducing fragmentation and improving market depth
• Facilitates seamless integration of NEAR-native assets into the broader DeFi ecosystem

Most bridges today rely on light client implementations, or smart contracts that verify data from other blockchains. These systems face inherent limitations with non-smart contract chains like Bitcoin and struggle with delayed transactions due to varying finality periods across chains as well as high computational costs.

To overcome these challenges, NEAR One developed OmniBridge, leveraging NEAR Chain Signatures—a state-of-the-art MPC system that enables secure cross-chain message verification. Built on the battle-tested infrastructure of the Rainbow Bridge, which launched in 2021 and never suffered a single security failure, OmniBridge extends these capabilities to the entire blockchain ecosystem.

Technical Architecture

NEAR OmniBridge operates through three core components:

1. Deterministic Address Derivation: Any NEAR account can mathematically derive a corresponding permanent address on other blockchains, ensuring consistent and secure cross-chain interactions that are easy for users to manage.
2. Bridge Smart Contract: A central contract on the NEAR network manages token locking and coordinates with the MPC network to request signatures for outbound transfers.
3. MPC Service: A decentralized network of nodes collaboratively generates secure signatures for cross-chain transactions without reconstructing a full private key, ensuring robust security thanks to threshold cryptography.

Launch and Integration

The first phase of OmniBridge deployment will integrate NEAR Intents, enabling structured message passing across supported chains. This integration allows for:

• Clear and verifiable cross-chain transaction paths
• Optimized routing for better capital efficiency
• Reduced settlement times across all supported chains
• Better composability for cross-chain DeFi applications

Following the initial launch, OmniBridge will undergo a gradual rollout of additional chain support, prioritizing major ecosystems based on user demand and technical readiness. 

Building on OmniBridge

OmniBridge’s open-source architecture creates new opportunities for developers and projects within the NEAR ecosystem:

• Cross-chain DEX implementations with unified liquidity pools
• Multi-chain stablecoins and yield aggregation platforms
• Chain-agnostic AI agent token use cases
• Interoperable consumer primitives 

Developers can find documentation and integration guides on docs.near.org, with support available via NEAR Chain Abstraction Telegram Group.

The introduction of OmniBridge marks a major milestone in NEAR’s mission to build a more interconnected and efficient blockchain ecosystem. By addressing the core challenges of cross-chain liquidity fragmentation, OmniBridge unlocks new possibilities for the next generation of blockchain applications and services.

The post OmniBridge: NEAR’s Universal Solution for Cross-Chain Liquidity appeared first on NEAR Protocol.

The hackathon, held from February 1–2 in San Francisco, was designed to push the boundaries of AI Agent innovation. The goal? To create agents that not only understand and analyze complex data but also explain their decisions and collaborate across blockchain networks seamlessly. As our CEO and co-founder Illia Polosukhin shared during his keynote, “AI is the last technology”.  

Organized in collaboration with Coinbase Developer Platform, Replit, and Anthropic, and sponsored by leading protocols including Virtuals Protocol, NEAR Protocol, XMTP, BASE Protocol, Hyperbolic Protocol, and Byte, the event was a melting pot of ideas and technical prowess. With over 100 participants, the hackathon provided an inclusive environment where developers could experiment with new tools, collaborate with peers, and tackle real-world challenges.

The Trillion Agent Pursuit

For the hackathon, NEAR included bounties focused on three key areas we believe pave the way to scale one trillion autonomous agents on-chain:

1. Reasoning Capabilities: Crafting agents that can explain their decisions and learn from experience. For example, imagine a smart contract auditor that not only identifies vulnerabilities but also reasons about potential attack vectors and suggests fixes.
   
2. Cross-Chain Intelligence: Building systems that can understand and optimize interactions across various blockchains. Picture a cross-chain data analyst that investigates market inefficiencies and arbitrage opportunities, clearly explaining its findings.
   
3. Practical Innovation: Developing tools and applications that translate advanced AI capabilities into accessible, real-world solutions. Consider a market sentiment analyzer that merges on-chain and off-chain data to formulate complex theories about market movements.
   

Participants were provided with a rich technical framework and resources—including our NEAR AI Agent Quickstart and key integration examples on GitHub—to jumpstart their projects. An example reference implementation offered a glimpse of a seamless NEAR Intent plus USDC flow:

https://github.com/referencedev/test-intent/blob/main/intents.py

This technical scaffold enabled teams to break down complex challenges into clear, manageable components, fostering an environment where technical depth met practical usability.

Winning Projects & Highlights

Several projects emerged as standout highlights, including two bounty winners that showcased the power of AI Agents on NEAR:

Chainsmokers (Participant: Matthew Law):
An MCP-augmented chatbot designed to create and pull in relevant tools on demand, facilitating natural language processing for cross-chain transactions through NearAI. Chainsmokers demonstrated how AI Agents can extend beyond pre-defined toolsets to provide flexible, real-time solutions.

“Crypto and its tech are often hidden from ordinary users, but the event brought together highly skilled devs. With guidance from Coinbase and Near’s engineering team, I rapidly built Chainsmoker . . . Near’s agent framework made integration seamless, and it was only exemplified by their incredible support. Seeing the community come together made it an enjoyable, educational, and deeply meaningful event.” – Matthew Law, Founder of Chainsmoker

Mosaia (Participants: Aaron Wong Ellis, Alex Alksne, Cyril Delattre):

Also known as Walley, this smart wallet agent assesses user input and wallet interactions to construct tailored investment strategies. Acting as an AI financial co-pilot, Walley continuously learns from user behavior, evolving its trading and smart contract interaction strategies.

“Building an AI agent able to transact on your behalf has been a lot of fun, and unlock a whole new word, where anyone can get access to a financial advisor that understand them. The hackathon provided a great platform to share how easy it can be to build personalized portfolio management across multiple chains through Mosaia. The support of NEAR’s team and robust developer ecosystem played a huge role in making this project a reality.” – Cyril Delattre, Mosaia Co-founder and CEO

Additional Notable Projects:

• A2A Exchange (Participant: Jared Grogan):
  A versatile agent equipped with advanced voice-to-voice capabilities, A2A Exchange leverages Herakles AI to support the Near Protocol ecosystem while delivering general-purpose crypto knowledge. This project underscored the potential of voice interfaces in enhancing blockchain interactions.
  
• Alphabot (Participants: Chetan Nandakumar, Michael Barry, Anderson Chen, BabuAravind, Kashyab Murali):
  A discovery service that enables AgentKit-powered agents to locate one another, Alphabot exemplifies how interconnected AI agents can form robust networks, enhancing both functionality and user experience.
  

The innovations showcased at the hackathon have far-reaching implications for the AI Agent ecosystem. By addressing challenges like reasoning, cross-chain coordination, and practical application, the projects not only highlight individual ingenuity but also signal a broader trend towards more adaptive, intelligent systems. The event reinforced that the future of technology will be defined by systems that learn, evolve, and operate across multiple domains seamlessly.

As we move forward, NEAR is committed to nurturing this ecosystem by continuing to provide robust tools, technical resources, and a collaborative platform for developers worldwide. The hackathon was more than a competition—it was a glimpse into the future of AI Agents, where creative problem-solving and technical excellence combine to unlock new possibilities.

We are excited about the journey ahead and look forward to seeing how these innovations shape the landscape of AI and blockchain technology. Stay tuned, and join us on the journey to one trillion agents on-chain.

Join Us at ETH Denver!

We’re also gearing up for ETH Denver with a series of exciting events. Mark your calendars and come join us for a deep dive into the NEAR AI stack, interactive workshops, networking sessions, and much more:

• Feb 25
  • The Road to One Trillion Agents (Day 1)
  • Delphi x NEAR Happy Hour 🍻
• Feb 26
  • Founders & VC’s Brunch hosted by DFG, Jsquare, and NEAR
  • The Road to One Trillion Agents (Day 2)
  • NEAR Eco Mixer 🍹
• Feb 27
  • NEAR AI Agent Games Day 🤝
• 

For more technical resources and support, visit the NEAR AI Documentation, explore our NEAR AI Agent Kit, or join our Developer Telegram.

The post AI Agents: Transforming Technology at the Coinbase Onchain AI Hackathon appeared first on NEAR Protocol.

Web3 adoption needs seamless user experiences. Today, we’re announcing two strategic RFPs (Request for Proposals) that will transform how users interact with blockchain technology:

• Maintaining and evolving the current Fast Auth network
• Building a new chain-abstracted embedded wallet solution with automatic authentication across apps

The Opportunity

Selected teams will:

• Take over and maintain the existing Fast Auth network powering over 800,000 SWEAT users
• Build Fast Auth 2.0—a developer-friendly Chain-Abstracted embedded wallet and facilitate Fast Auth 1.0 migration (part of Fast Auth RFP)
• Create Multichain One-Click Connect for automatic authentication across applications

While it’s preferred that the same team applies for both Multichain One-Click Connect and Fast Auth since the solutions complement each other well, this is not required.

NEAR’s Unique Advantage

NEAR stands apart through its innovative key rotation capabilities. Unlike traditional MPC solutions, NEAR allows true custody transfer through the ability to add and delete full access keys. This means users maintain their NEAR accounts while controlling assets across Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other chains – all while reducing dependence on centralized key holders.

NEAR’s account model gives us a competitive edge. With named accounts, subaccounts, and linkdrop technology, we offer Web2-like accounts using usernames and passwords, plus the ability to program on-chain interactions for users who don’t yet have accounts. While we recognize the need for simpler Web2-style authentication—and acknowledge solutions like Privy and Web3Auth and clean wallets contributing to growth in ecosystems like Solana and Base—we believe true crypto ownership requires self-custody. Users should be confident that regardless of which service they use to set up their wallet, they can safely transfer it without anyone else retaining access. Chain Signatures will enable us to combine easy onboarding with decentralized progressive custody not just for the NEAR ecosystem, but for every supported chain’s ecosystem.

The Power of Chain Signatures

Chain Signatures, a novel threshold signature protocol utilizing an MPC (multi-party computation) signer network on NEAR, enables account aggregation—the ability to sign transactions on any chain from a single NEAR account through one interface. This groundbreaking innovation in 2024 has already seen a rich ecosystem including Bitcoin-to-email transfers, bitcoin lending, multichain agents, and cross-chain swaps. While its potential is immense, developers currently face integration challenges requiring manual setup of chains and supporting wallets, significant hurdles remain for the average application developer.

Building the Complete Solution

This isn’t just an infrastructure build—the new maintainers of Fast Auth are being asked to build a complete embeddable wallet that works with all chains’ major wallet providers, which application developers and other wallet providers can integrate as infrastructure. Creating a truly seamless Web3 experience requires multiple components working in harmony: Chain Signatures for account creation and signing, Multichain One-Click Connect for seamless authentication, Gas Abstraction for application-subsidized transactions, and Chain-Abstracted oracles and explorers to properly display cross-chain balances and transactions. Together, these elements will enable users to transact across chains without managing private keys.

To achieve this vision, we’re launching RFPs for:

• FastAuth 1.0 Takeover + Fast Auth 2.0 – Chain Abstraction

• Multichain One-Click Connect

Why Now?

Following Keypom’s acquisition by Infinex and the sunset of Pagoda (formerly NEAR Inc), we’re taking a new approach. Rather than building in-house, we’re funding multiple qualified teams to maintain, integrate, and evolve these technologies. This strategy will create a more competitive and decentralized ecosystem.

Join Us in Building the Future

We’re seeking multiple qualified teams with experience in cross-chain products and embedded wallet solutions. The Infrastructure Committee, NEAR’s dedicated infrastructure funding body, will evaluate proposals two weeks after the submission period ends. Apply directly here and learn more about the Committee’s vision in their yearly recap here.

The post RFPs Now Open for Fast Auth and Multichain One-Click appeared first on NEAR Protocol.

The Foundation is looking to invest in agent tokens that push the boundaries of the onchain agentic design space beyond the basic social poster agents. NF will explore working with ecosystems like Sky, Frax, and more on accelerating the launch of novel use cases powered by AI agents that can unlock new flows of value. Some experiments the fund would be excited to support include agent tokenisation, agent-curated order flow, fully on-chain gaming with AI characters, permissionless AI oracles, agent curated savings accounts, financial entertainment, market maker agents, and social onboarding.

By creating this agent fund, the Foundation hopes to bring more builders onboard to the exciting possibilities unlocked by NEAR’s tech at the intersection of crypto and AI. NEAR’s fully verifiable AI agent development stack includes some unique core primitives that offer a full spectrum of developer tooling options. These include off-chain and cross-chain commitments with NEAR Intents, multi-party computation (MPC) based key management and trust minimized bridging with Chain Signatures, and trusted execution environments (TEEs) for agents to run securely.

NEAR is purpose-built to drive innovation and propel adoption of open-source, User Owned AI, empowering users to control their own data and assets while enabling personalized AI use cases that make their lives better and easier. Today’s popular AI interfaces, both closed-source and open source, lack transparency in both how models are trained and how user data is utilized. The NEAR ecosystem envisions a future in which groundbreaking AI and the sovereignty of communities and individuals are not at odds, but rather symbiotic––leading to new economic opportunities, novel business models, and a diverse technology landscape no longer controlled by a few mega-corporations. 

The agent fund will complement other builder-focused initiatives in the NEAR ecosystem including the Horizon AI accelerator cohorts and AI hackathons, empowering the next generation of founders and projects pushing the boundaries of AI and Web3. 
Builders interested in creating experimental agents and AI tokens can get started here.

The post NEAR Foundation Announces AI Agent Fund to Invest in Innovative Agent Tokens appeared first on NEAR Protocol.

Current focus

Our top priority is enhancing the latency and throughput of Chain Signatures. We’re on track to launch a new version in February 2025 that will deliver an impressive 300x improvement in throughput. Alongside this, the new version will reduce the latency of on-chain signing by 50%, enabling users to experience faster transaction settlements than ever before.

Next Steps for H1 2025

In the first half of 2025, we are prioritizing several major improvements to enhance the capabilities and security of Chain Signatures:

• TEE Integration for the MPC Network TEE (trusted execution environments) is a powerful hardware-based primitive that enables verifiable computation and can be used to ensure that no key share from any of the node operators can ever be leaked. We want to make sure that every node that participates in signing runs their MPC code inside TEE. It is not just the signing code itself, but also the code that verifies the signing request, which involves a light client, and the code that authenticates a new node when they join the network. TEE integration will prevent long range attacks and further strengthen the security of Chain Signatures.
• EdDSA Support. While our initial focus has been on ECDSA (widely used for digital signatures in many blockchains), we’re expanding to support EdDSA, which is the key signature scheme for popular blockchains like Solana and TON. Adding EdDSA support will extend Chain Signatures to more blockchains, advancing the vision of a seamless, multichain future.
• Reading Data from Other Chains Chain Signatures allows users and smart contracts to sign transactions for other chains on NEAR. To make NEAR a hub for the multichain future, it is also important to enable reading other chain data, mostly account state, on NEAR, which can also be achieved securely through MPC.

Future work

We plan to work on novel cryptography research to further improve the efficiency and scalability of Chain Signatures. The goal is to scale the Chain Signatures MPC network to 30 nodes without compromising performance, with added benefits of stronger censorship resistance and decentralization. We also plan to research expanding Chain Signatures to include other signature schemes such as Secp256r1, used for passkeys on mobile phones.

Build with Chain Signatures

Join the growing community of teams building chain-agnostic applications powered by Chain Signatures, including the projects listed below. Chain Signatures enable truly autonomous AI agents, DeFi capabilities on Bitcoin and other non-smart contract chains, seamless cross-chain applications, and more.

Infinex: The crypto everything app

HOT: Seamless omnichain wallet

RuneShot: Runes launchpad with real price discovery

Satoshi Port: Prime brokerage for Bitcoin holders

Bitte: Omnichain wallets and AI agents

Templar: Borrow against any asset (BTC, XRP, TON, and more)

Solswap: Swap from SOL, TRUMP and more to BTC, XRP, ETH, DOGE

Satoshi Protocol: Trade for any asset from Bitcoin

Atlas: Non-custodial Bitcoin restaking

BitHive: Bitcoin restaking with flexible slashing conditions

OmniLane: Fastest decentralized omnichain exchange

To start working alongside these projects and build new multichain use cases, get started here: https://docs.near.org/build/chain-abstraction/chain-signatures/

The post Advancing Chain Signatures: What’s Next? appeared first on NEAR Protocol.

2024: From Duct Tape to Infrastructure 

In just eight months since its inception, the Infrastructure Committee has become the most prominent open grant mechanism in the NEAR ecosystem in response to “infra not infra-ing.” 

The current infrastructure committee is composed of technical leaders from around the NEAR ecosystem: Bowen Wang, head of NEAR One; Alex Shevchenko, founder of Aurora; Eric Winer, CTO of Pagoda; Vlad Frolov of NEAR DevHub; Evgeny Kuzyakov of FastNEAR—with admin support from the NEAR Foundation and DevHub contributors.

The committee’s impact has been substantial, supporting critical infrastructure that powers the entire ecosystem. The Infrastructure Committee approved 24 proposals, out of 99 submissions, in 2024.

Some notable 2024 highlights include:

• Enhanced Wallet Infrastructure: Supported most major native wallets (NEAR Mobile Wallet, HERE Wallet, Nightly Wallet, Meteor Wallet, MyNEARWallet transition to Meteor), enabling innovations like HERE Wallet’s HOT wallet (which became one of Web3’s most-used dApps), Meteor Wallet’s successful launch of Harvest Moon, and the Nightly Social Login
• Decentralized RPC Services: Successfully transitioned RPC services to decentralized providers (Lava), improving network reliability and performance, and onboarding additional providers like FastNEAR and BlockPi, significantly enhancing RPC node response times and uptime
• Multiple Analytics Vendors: Funded NEARBlocks, the primary explorer on NEAR, and onboarded multiple analytics providers, including Token Terminal, Chainspect, and Intear, strengthening core infrastructure tools and analytics capabilities
• Pagoda Sunset: Supported the transition of critical services to sustainable, community-driven alternatives with the wind-down of Pagoda services
• Innovative Endeavors: Funded DevHub’s self-service treasury app and an exciting partnership with Mercuryo for a NEAR-branded Mastercard
• Create On-Chain Funding Process: Established an on-chain process for RFPs and proposals through DevHub’s portal product

Looking Ahead: 2025 Priorities

Based on extensive builder feedback and ecosystem needs, the Infrastructure Committee’s focus in 2025 includes:

• Continuous Improvement: Continuing to support infra and ongoing commitments from the previous year, including but not limited to the wallets mentioned above, Fast NEAR, and NEARBlocks 
• Working Groups: Setting up working groups to manage accounts, respond to proposals actively, find innovation, and draft RFPs so that ecosystem development can become more proactive instead of reactive. Expect RFPs to be posted regularly throughout the year. 
• Wallet Improvements: NEAR single sign-on from NEAR wallet to Solana app, on-ramps, and off-ramps
• Chain Abstraction Infrastructure: Supporting the development of tools and services to make NEAR more accessible and interoperable with other blockchain ecosystems (multichain explorer, oracles, Omnitoken, Omnibalance support)
• Decentralized AI Infrastructure: Investing in foundational infrastructure to support NEAR’s growing role in decentralized AI applications from across the ecosystem

Get Involved

Do you have an idea or see a gap that needs addressing? The Infrastructure Committee welcomes participation from the entire NEAR ecosystem through the NEAR Infrastructure Committee Portal. Ecosystem members are welcome to help create strategic RFPs and vet proposals in the following ways: 

• Builders: Share your infrastructure needs and pain points
• Infrastructure Providers: Submit proposals for innovative solutions
• Community Members: Provide feedback on current infrastructure and future needs

Thanks to everyone who contributed to critical NEAR infrastructure in 2024 and the IC looks forward to even more great work in 2025.

The post NEAR Infrastructure Committee: First Year Recap & 2025 Priorities appeared first on NEAR Protocol.

NEAR will now have direct exposure to the Ethereum community, further reducing the friction of users having to create NEAR wallets before interacting with NEAR/multichain apps. All Ethereum users—and this is particularly relevant to DeFi users—now have access to the benefits of Chain Signatures and Chain Abstraction apps, with no new wallets or assets needed. Developers and teams can directly embed the Ethereum wallet selector in their apps, allowing users to sign in using MetaMask or the ETH wallet of their choice.

NEAR co-founder and CEO Illia Polosukhin comments: “Enabling all Ethereum wallets, including MetaMask, to sign in on NEAR apps closes another gap in achieving Chain Abstraction. ETH users are now able to explore experiences on NEAR and other chains without needing to switch wallets. This is a big step forward for simpler onboarding and defragmenting liquidity and access for DeFi users, bringing all of Web3 closer to achieving the Chain Abstraction vision.”

Aurora Labs is the project behind Aurora, a network of Virtual Chains that combines NEAR’s scalability with powerful infrastructure for the easy deployment of preconfigured blockchains.

“By integrating Ethereum wallets into NEAR’s ecosystem,” said Aurora Labs’ CEO Alex Shevchenko, “we streamline access and enhance the developer experience. Developers can now build apps that seamlessly serve both NEAR and Ethereum users, simplifying onboarding and expanding liquidity channels. This is a crucial step toward a unified Web3 where users and capital move freely across ecosystems.”

A short list of NEAR partners implementing the Ethereum wallet integration includes:

• Thunderhood
• Burrow.finance
• Linear Finance
• Munzen
• Bitte Wallet
• Paras
• Ref Finance
• Sender
• Meteor Wallet

Head to welcome-to-near.org to sign in with your preferred Ethereum wallet and explore apps and experiences in the Chain Abstraction ecosystem. That includes unlocking the whole universe of Chain Abstracted DeFi experiences from your existing wallet: engage with NEAR DeFi apps like Ref and Burrow and participate in their incentivized pools.

The post All Ethereum Wallets, Including MetaMask, Now Usable on NEAR Mainnet appeared first on NEAR Protocol.

At the same time, the rise of AI agents across the entire Web has created a need for their interoperability. Agents need a negotiation and commitment framework that allows them to work together across a variety of systems under the hood. While some may see on-chain DeFi participants and AI agents as completely separate today, the NEAR ecosystem envisions an AI-first economy where AI agents and solvers are both responsible for executing intents and fulfilling the transaction commitment to users. 

Today, we are excited to introduce NEAR Intents as part of the core NEAR Protocol. NEAR Intents are a new type of transaction that allows multiple actors to commit to certain changes of their state. This allows the exchange of information, assets, physical goods, and services between AI agents, services, and end users. Intents represent a novel transaction framework for both Web2 and Web3, allowing the execution of off-chain actions and multichain transactions with unparalleled speed, security, ease of use, and reliability.

As the blockchain for AI, NEAR Protocol is launching NEAR Intents to unlock a new era of interactions between AI and the real world, making AI agents and on-chain liquidity readily available to everyone. NEAR Intents are starting in beta today on near.org/intents and will fully launch in Q1 2025.

Leveraging NEAR Protocol’s chain abstraction stack and the intent solver network, NEAR Intents allow trading of any asset on any chain from a single account or by any agent, without the need for bridging or wrapping assets. Both AI agents and end users can take action with NEAR Intents across Web2 and Web3, unlocking a massive range of new functionalities and use cases with better usability than ever. 

In addition to unifying liquidity across all chains, NEAR Intents enable use cases above and beyond simple swaps, including on-chain functions natively for stablecoins across any chains, DeFi programmability for non-smart contract assets like Bitcoin and Dogecoin, collateralizing existing derivatives positions to borrow stablecoins on another chain, or even swapping/selling entire accounts. When you combine any intent type with the power of AI agents, net-new primitives like inter-agent trading, communication, and much more become possible, creating even more new and innovative DeFi opportunities. 

Some of the key features of NEAR Intents include: 

• Decentralized Finance Infrastructure: NEAR Intents enable decentralized, cross-chain DeFi infrastructure for trading of various financial instruments. Designed to be open and permissionless, any developer can launch their own financial products.
• Multichain Abstraction: Leveraging NEAR Protocol’s chain abstraction technology, NEAR Intents seamlessly integrate multiple blockchain networks without relying on traditional bridges, reducing associated risks and costs, as well as wait times. This ensures that any app can add instant support for new networks and tokens.
• Intent-Based Architecture: Instead of a traditional AMM architecture that requires on-chain pools, NEAR Intents operate on an intent-based model with requests for quotes fulfilled by solvers. This allows for better liquidity access (DeFi, CeFi, and off-chain), resulting in better prices.
• AccountFi: Leveraging the concept of AccountFi where financial operations are conducted upon accounts rather than individual tokens, NEAR Intents allow for the trading, lending, and management of accounts possessing different assets, such as fungible tokens, NFTs, and non-transferable tokens like Soulbound Tokens (SBTs).

The NEAR ecosystem believes that the next wave of DeFi will power the future AI economy. NEAR Intents are a major step towards realizing this vision, opening up amazing new use cases for DeFi and unlocking the true power of Chain Abstracted blockchain and AI combined. 

To learn more and get started, go to near.org/intents. 

The post Introducing NEAR Intents: A New Type of Transaction Between AI and the Real World appeared first on NEAR Protocol.