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NEAR Integrates Confidential Intents to Anchor Emerging Agentic Economy

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NEAR Protocol is shifting its infrastructure toward the “agentic economy,” integrating confidential execution and intent-based systems to support autonomous AI agents. The latest updates, detailed in the NEAR official roadmap, highlight a focus on enabling machines to act as economic participants through private coordination and universal liquidity.

The core of this transition is Confidential Intents, a feature designed to provide privacy for cross-chain trading and payments. Unlike fully transparent decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, which expose transaction details to bots and observers, Confidential Intents utilizes private shards to mask transaction size, direction, and asset pairs by default. The protocol aims to combine the privacy levels of specialized chains with the composability of public networks.

Adoption Metrics and Private Volume

Data from the second quarter indicates a significant shift toward private transaction execution within the ecosystem. According to an analysis by Nansen, Confidential Intents’ Total Value Locked (TVL) surpassed $30 million. Furthermore, the firm reported that 42% of the swap volume on the near.com interface was executed privately by default during this period.

The integration of intents—a system where users specify a desired outcome rather than a sequence of technical steps—has expanded beyond native protocol tools. Third-party platforms including SimpleSwap and Ledger have recently incorporated NEAR-powered intent systems, facilitating swaps across more than 30 different blockchains.

Building Infrastructure for AI Agents

NEAR’s objective is to provide an “open stack” for AI agents that require more than just a large language model to function as economic actors. According to the protocol’s development team, an effective agentic economy requires several specialized capabilities, including:

  • Confidential execution: Allowing agents to process sensitive data and financial moves without public exposure.
  • Settlement speed: Infrastructure capable of handling machine-driven transactions at a micro scale.
  • Universal liquidity: Enabling agents to access assets across multiple chains without fragmented user experiences.
  • Private inference: Ensuring that the data processed by AI models remains secure.

The project characterizes Confidential Intents as a solution to the tension between high-speed execution and the liability of on-chain transparency. By running these flows on a private shard rather than relying solely on client-side zero-knowledge proofs, the protocol claims to maintain a standard user experience while preventing the leakage of trade positions.

Future Strategic Focus

The roadmap through 2026 continues to emphasize the convergence of AI and blockchain settlement. Beyond current swap and payment features, the protocol is working toward “Universal Send,” a feature intended to allow confidential payments to any user on any chain without exposing wallet history.

While the infrastructure for these agent-led transactions is scaling, with NEAR Intents cumulative volume reportedly reaching $19 billion in late May, the long-term success of the “agentic economy” depends on the developer adoption of these private execution layers and the continued integration of secure public-sector AI initiatives.

The post NEAR Integrates Confidential Intents to Anchor Emerging Agentic Economy appeared first on The Cryptocurrency Post.

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Noos sets September 5 mainnet launch as it moves AI agent infrastructure on-chain

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Noos said its mainnet will go live at 00:00 UTC on September 5, 2026, marking the project’s shift from testnet operation to an on-chain environment for AI agent execution, collaboration, verification and value settlement.

The announcement was published on Noos’ official blog, which described the launch as a step toward the AI agent economy rather than a simple network transition. The post said the project has spent 159 days building on testnet ahead of mainnet.

In a separate post on Noos’ official X account, the team said the move will bring those functions fully on-chain once mainnet opens. The same materials say Noos has been working across ecosystem partners, nodes, users and communities ahead of launch.

Testnet phase set the backdrop for launch

Noos said its testnet began on March 20, 2026 and continued for 159 days. During that period, the project said it completed phased testing of core infrastructure that includes AI Agents, AI Skills, Genesis AIDs and the IVN validation network.

The project also said its testnet phase involved more than 50 ecosystem partners, 700+ global KOLs, 3,500+ globally distributed computing nodes and 5,000 on-chain Genesis AIDs. Those figures were presented by Noos as part of the foundation for the mainnet rollout.

According to the announcement, mainnet is expected to move the network beyond infrastructure validation and into “real usage, execution, collaboration, and value.”

Noos frames the launch around the AI agent economy, a concept it says requires computing power, agent skills, verification, payments, data, smart hardware and vertical applications to work together. The company’s message indicates the mainnet is intended to connect those pieces in a live on-chain environment, though the announcement does not add further operational details beyond the launch timing and broader network goals.

The post Noos sets September 5 mainnet launch as it moves AI agent infrastructure on-chain appeared first on The Cryptocurrency Post.

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Algorand launches AC2 to let AI agents request user approvals without exposing private keys

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Algorand Foundation has launched AC2, an open protocol designed to make AI agent approvals more secure by keeping private keys under the user’s control. In the foundation’s public announcement, AC2 is described as a standard for direct, encrypted communication between users and AI agents that lets agents request signing actions without handing over wallet access.

The launch centers on a familiar problem in AI-driven workflows: agents may need to sign payments, code commits or other digital actions on a user’s behalf, but the surrounding messaging tools do not provide cryptographic verification or scoped approval. Algorand says AC2 is meant to close that gap by allowing the user to review and approve each requested action through their own wallet interface.

How AC2 is described to work

According to the foundation, AC2 establishes an end-to-end encrypted WebRTC connection between a user’s wallet or app and an AI agent. When the agent needs authorization for an action such as a payment, git commit or API request, it sends a signing request through AC2. The user then approves the action directly, while the private key remains with the user.

The announcement also says the protocol is blockchain-agnostic and open source, with both the specification and a reference implementation now available. Algorand framed AC2 as a way to support broader “agentic” workflows without requiring users to surrender full control of their accounts.

The foundation said the protocol can be extended for different message types and signing formats, which it says would make it usable in settings where agents need limited, user-approved authority rather than unrestricted access.

For now, the launch is best understood as a security and communications layer for AI agents rather than evidence that AI payments or agent-driven commerce are already widespread. The key change is narrower but concrete: users are meant to approve exactly what an agent can sign, instead of relying on chat-based instructions that can be easier to spoof or misread.

The post Algorand launches AC2 to let AI agents request user approvals without exposing private keys appeared first on The Cryptocurrency Post.

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Token Terminal data shows AI agents driving 73 million stablecoin transfers in 180 days

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Token Terminal’s agentic payments explorer shows AI agents initiating 73.0 million stablecoin transfers over the past 180 days, with USDC accounting for virtually all of the activity.

The explorer data also points to a concentration of transfers on a small number of networks. Base led with 38.7 million transfers, while Polygon followed with 26.1 million, according to Token Terminal.

The figures describe transfer activity initiated by AI agents, not a broader measure of stablecoin adoption across the market. The available data also does not by itself explain who the agents were, what applications they were using or whether the transfers reflect sustained operational usage beyond the measured period.

Still, the numbers offer a concrete snapshot of how agent-driven payments are appearing in onchain data. In this case, the activity is largely tied to USDC and concentrated on Base and Polygon, which makes the breakdown more specific than a generic claim about AI and crypto payments.

The post Token Terminal data shows AI agents driving 73 million stablecoin transfers in 180 days appeared first on The Cryptocurrency Post.

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