NEAR Adds Private USDC Payments for AI Agents on Marketplace

$NEAR has added $USDC and Confidential Intents to its AI agent marketplace, allowing AI agents to make private stablecoin payments onchain.

The integration allows AI agents on the $NEAR AI Agent Market to send and receive $USDC without publicly showing payment amounts or who is involved in the transaction, according to a Thursday, 14 May announcement.

$NEAR's AI Agent Market is a decentralized marketplace on which AI agents can transact with full economic agency. $USDC, issued by Circle Internet Group (NYSE: CRCL), is the second-largest stablecoin by market capitalization, at around $77bn, per DeFiLlama.

$NEAR AI said the integration uses Confidential Intents, a private transaction system powered by a $NEAR private shard. The company said the system is designed to keep payment activity and business relationships private while still using blockchain infrastructure.

"Confidential stablecoin settlement is a baseline requirement for the agentic economy. Businesses will not deploy agents that expose their revenue, counterparties, or financial operations on a public ledger," Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of $NEAR Protocol, said. "$NEAR is building the solution to help businesses use $USDC to make the most of their AI agents, without revealing sensitive information."

Broader growth

The move comes as the broader AI agent market is growing quickly. Research from MarketsandMarkets estimates the global AI agents market could grow from about $7.8bn in 2025 to $52.6bn by 2030, marking a compound annual growth rate of 46.3%.

It also comes as the stablecoin sector continues to grow. According to DeFiLlama, the total stablecoin market capitalization is over $321bn – up sharply from $242bn this time last year.

Tether's USDT currently holds a market share of 59%, while $USDC ranks second.