NEAR became one of the best-performing large-cap altcoins over the past week after its price rose from around $2.20 to above $4.20 within seven days.

The rally coincided with the launch of a new perpetual futures product that combines Hyperliquid’s infrastructure with NEAR’s confidential transaction technology.
The chart shows that most of the move developed after September 17. NEAR first broke above $3, then held around $3.50-$3.80 before sharply accelerating above $4.20 on September 20. After reaching the weekly high, it retreated to approximately $4.00.
near protocol price
Near Protocol price chart from CoinMarketCap
This puts the token significantly above its levels at the beginning of the week, although part of the appreciation also coincided with a broader crypto market recovery.
Privacy without hiding the market itself
The main product catalyst is the launch of perpetual futures with a “confidential-by-default” model on September 17. NEAR presents it as a way for traders to use derivatives without publicly linking their wallets and the source of their funds to a specific position.
However, this does not mean the trades disappear from the market. Positions and orders continue to be executed through Hyperliquid and remain part of its market infrastructure. The confidential layer breaks the public link between the deposit, the account, and the corresponding position.
Hyperliquid provides the liquidity
NEAR is not building a separate derivatives market from scratch. Instead, the product uses Hyperliquid to execute perpetual trades, while NEAR Intents manages the movement of funds and the confidential layer.
The integration offers:
Access to more than 50 perpetual markets.
Funding with assets from more than 35 blockchains.
Automatic collateral conversion.
Up to 40x leverage on supported markets.
In this way, NEAR is attempting to combine the liquidity of an already established derivatives market with its own cross-chain infrastructure, rather than attracting traders to an entirely new exchange.
The rally goes beyond a single product announcement
The launch of “confidential perpetuals” coincided with a sharp acceleration in the price, but by itself cannot prove the cause of the entire weekly gain. Data from September 18 showed NEAR with approximately 46% weekly appreciation still in the early part of the rally, while daily volume reached approximately $1.8 billion
Activity around NEAR Intents is also increasing. Network data shows more than $30 billion in cumulative cross-chain volume, while the infrastructure for confidential operations is attracting more capital.
After a move of more than 80% in a week, focus is now shifting from the announcement itself to product usage. If “confidential perpetuals” manage to attract sustained volume, they could give NEAR a new role as an infrastructure layer between cross-chain liquidity, privacy, and Hyperliquid’s markets.