NEAR Protocol and Zcash both ripped more than 20% higher, but the catalysts are very different. One is tied to a product milestone and incentive snapshot, the other to a governance-backed push for faster blocks and unchanged issuance rules.
- NEAR: Confidential Intents TVL crossed $70 million, triggering the [email protected] snapshot.
- ZEC: Holders backed proposed network changes, including faster block times and keeping the halving schedule intact.
- Not the Fed: This looks like token-specific buying, not a clean macro “easing” trade.
Crypto markets love a neat story, but these two moves are not the same beast. NEAR is getting a boost from usage and incentives. Zcash is catching a bid on governance, privacy, and a very loud reminder that some traders still want money that does not spill its guts on-chain.
That distinction matters. A price pump can come from real product traction, speculative positioning, or both. Sometimes it’s fundamentals with a sugar high. Sometimes it’s just the market inhaling its own fumes.
NEAR Protocol’s rally is tied to a clear milestone. On September 15, the total value locked in Confidential Intents crossed $70 million, and NEAR Protocol’s official account said that triggered a snapshot for the [email protected] incentive program. The snapshot has already been taken.
“near.com MILESTONE: Confidential TVL has reached $70 million. The snapshot for the [email protected] milestone incentive program has been taken.”, NEAR Protocol (@NEARProtocol)
For readers who don’t live and breathe crypto jargon, total value locked, or TVL, is the amount of value sitting in a protocol or product. It’s a rough measure of activity and commitment, though it can be inflated by mercenary capital chasing rewards. A snapshot is just a record taken at a specific moment to decide who qualifies for incentives.
Confidential Intents is NEAR’s privacy-focused transaction flow, and NEAR Intents is the broader system that lets users state the outcome they want while solvers figure out the route. In plain English: you say what you want done, and the network helps work out how to do it. NEAR also says its Chain Signatures feature can move assets across more than 30 chains, which is the kind of cross-chain plumbing that sounds nerdy until you remember how annoying fragmented crypto UX still is. If you want the technical breakdown, How Confidential Intents Works: Privacy Architecture for lays out the design in more detail, while Announcing General Availability of Confidential Intents marks the rollout milestone.
That said, a milestone is not the same thing as durable demand. It tells you people noticed the protocol, and maybe rushed in for incentives, but it does not prove the buying will stick once the reward hunt cools off.
Analyst Rain linked NEAR’s move to Intents activity and the $70 million threshold. He pointed out that NEAR had already climbed from about $1.80 to $2.41 over two weeks before pushing toward $2.76. That matters because it suggests the token was already grinding higher before the snapshot event hit. In other words, the milestone likely amplified an existing move rather than creating it from thin air.
Rex (@0xRexnftcrypto) described NEAR as “a sharded layer 1 built for speed and simple accounts, ” adding that one NEAR account can move assets across 30 plus chains through Chain Signatures and NEAR Intents, “so users state an outcome and solvers handle the rest.” That’s the pitch NEAR wants the market to buy: usable infrastructure, not just another chain collecting dust and TVL screenshots.
Zcash’s move has a different backbone. ZEC climbed past $1, 300 on September 16 and 17 and briefly approached $1, 400 as holders backed proposed network changes, including faster block times and keeping the halving schedule intact. The reported vote results were strong: 99.9% support for reducing target block time from 75 seconds to 25 seconds, 98.9% support for keeping the existing halving schedule, and support for delaying reissuance of fees collected through the Network Sustainability Mechanism until 2031.
Those changes are not already active on the network. That is a crucial distinction. Crypto traders have a habit of pricing in “approved” like it already means “shipped, ” which is how you end up with a chart that screams ahead of the code. Governance votes are not deployment. They are promises with paperwork.
Target block time is the intended average time between blocks. Cutting it from 75 seconds to 25 seconds would make Zcash faster on paper, though faster blocks can come with tradeoffs around propagation and network stability. The vote suggests holders want better UX without wrecking the monetary schedule. Sensible, if a little less sexy than a full-on tokenomics rewrite.
The halving part matters because a halving schedule is the programmed reduction in issuance over time. Keeping that intact signals that Zcash holders want the network to evolve without blowing up its supply profile just to impress momentum traders. That is boring in the best possible way.
Zcash’s privacy angle is also back in the spotlight. The supplied market figures put ZEC’s gain over the past year near 2, 500%, and the token has returned to the top tier of cryptocurrencies by market value. Privacy coins are always a touchy subject in public markets because they sit at the intersection of real user demand, regulatory suspicion, and trader obsession. That mix tends to produce fireworks. For a broader look at the sector, see Privacy Coins 2025: Are Monero, Zcash, and GhostwareOS the, Privacy Coins Skyrocket in 2025 with Institutional, and Monero, Zcash Hold Strong as BlockDAG Pitches Risky 200x.
There is a real thesis here, though. Matt Huang of Paradigm has disclosed that the firm owns ZEC and described Zcash as a private complement to Bitcoin. That framing makes sense. Bitcoin is the hardest money narrative in crypto, but it is not built to be the privacy champion. Zcash fills a different niche, whether Bitcoin maxis want to admit it or not.
Still, let’s not turn every privacy coin pump into a moral victory parade. Plenty of ZEC buying is likely just chasing a violently trending asset that happens to come with a respectable story attached. Markets are not spiritual. They are opportunistic.
SatoshiCrypt BITUNIX called the move “stupid now, ” pointed to a $23 billion-plus market cap, and said “$1, 400, $1, 600 is the zone…” That kind of resistance zone is just a chart term for a price area where sellers may show up. It is not destiny. It is where prior supply might decide to get uncomfortably greedy again.
And no, this does not cleanly fit the “Fed easing” excuse some traders like to paste onto every green candle. The Federal Reserve’s statement on September 16 said it increased the target range by 0.25 percentage points to 3.75% to 4.00%. That is not easing. That is the opposite of the easy-money fairy tale.
The cleaner read is simpler: NEAR is getting rewarded for a usage milestone tied to Confidential Intents and incentives, while Zcash is getting rewarded for governance momentum, privacy branding, and a market that still loves a scarce asset with a purpose.
Neither move guarantees anything. Incentive-driven demand can fade fast once the snapshot excitement wears off. Governance-backed rallies can cool just as quickly if traders realize a vote is not a live upgrade. And a lot of price action in crypto is still just momentum wearing a fake mustache and calling itself “fundamental.”
Key takeaways
-
Why did NEAR rally?
Confidential Intents crossed $70 million in TVL, which triggered the [email protected] incentive snapshot. That milestone likely boosted attention and speculative buying around NEAR’s cross-chain privacy stack. -
Why did Zcash rally?
Holders backed proposed network changes, including faster block times and keeping the halving schedule intact. The vote gave traders a fresh catalyst, even though the changes are not yet active. -
Was the Fed the real reason?
No. The Fed’s September 16 statement said it increased rates to 3.75% to 4.00%, so this was not a clean “easing” setup. -
Does a snapshot mean guaranteed rewards?
No. A snapshot only records eligibility at a specific moment. It does not guarantee outsized rewards, and it definitely does not prove long-term demand. -
Is Zcash just a trader’s toy?
No. It has real privacy utility and a serious technical case, but the price action is still heavily speculative.
NEAR and Zcash are a reminder that crypto rallies rarely come from the same place twice. Sometimes it is product usage. Sometimes it is governance. Sometimes it is the market trying to outsmart itself and getting punched in the mouth by reality.
Further reading
A few related resources on privacy, incentives, and the broader crypto side quest:
