NEAR Intents Drives $2.7M in Q4 Buybacks as Fee Revenue Tops $1M

NEAR Protocol has spent approximately $2.7 million on NEAR token buybacks in the fourth quarter of 2026, funded almost entirely by fee income from its cross-chain swap product, NEAR Intents. The figure approaches the $3.07 million deployed in all of Q3, with roughly half of Q4 still remaining. The buyback program began in February 2026 and has since repurchased approximately $8 million worth of NEAR tokens.

The revenue engine behind those repurchases is narrow. Since October 1, NEAR Intents has collected approximately $8.68 million in fees, according to protocol disclosures. Of that, roughly $2.82 million has been retained by the protocol, while $5.86 million flowed to solvers and partner applications. In plain terms, the protocol keeps about one dollar of every three in fees it generates.

What does the fee trajectory show?

Token Terminal data traces a volatile path. Revenue began around $315,000 in December 2025 and climbed to a first peak of roughly $740,000 in February 2026. It then fell sharply to between $200,000 and $240,000 from April through July, a summer trough equal to roughly a third of the February high. Revenue rebuilt through the autumn to $650,000 in September before crossing the $1 million mark in October.

NEAR Intents contributed roughly 74% of October's total and the bulk of revenue in nearly every month. The base protocol's contribution remains small and steady, ranging between $30,000 and $260,000. The takeaway is simple: NEAR's revenue story currently rests almost entirely on one product.

Does buyback demand translate into token strength?

Volume figures are substantial. The platform recorded $3.76 billion in swap volume over the past 30 days, bringing cumulative volume since launch to approximately $37.3 billion. A separate AMBCrypto report put NEAR Intents Q3 trading volume at $10.41 billion, up 66% quarter-on-quarter and 891% year-on-year — nearly a tenfold rise in twelve months.

Yet sustained buyback activity has not produced price appreciation. NEAR traded at $3.51 after a 2.6% decline over the past 24 hours, and NEAR ETFs recorded outflows of $5.74 million in November so far. The market, in other words, is selling into the protocol's repurchases.

Where is the capital sitting?

Total value locked in NEAR Intents' confidential pools stood at $140.79 million at press time, up 402.7% over the last 90 days. The trajectory matters as much as the headline number. TVL started near $27 million in mid-August, surged sharply in mid-to-late September, and peaked at roughly $185 million around September 25-26. It then pulled back and settled into a range of $135 million to $165 million through October and early November, with a minor dip near the end of October. Growth, therefore, has plateaued rather than continued compounding.

What is the risk picture?

The growth story carries an inconvenient footnote. North Korean hackers linked to the $6.3 billion Binance exploit used six memecoins created on NEAR to launder stolen cryptocurrency, moving approximately 117,000 NEAR worth $430,000. The amount is small relative to $37.3 billion in cumulative volume, but it places NEAR's low-friction token creation in the conversation about laundering routes — a conversation regulators have not finished having.

The structural question for the coming quarters is whether the base protocol can widen its revenue contribution beyond the $30,000-to-$260,000 band, or whether NEAR's economics remain a single-product story whose buyback mechanism cushions, but does not reverse, sustained selling pressure.