ZEC surges, has NEAR really been earning passively? Data verification of the "shovel seller" narrative

Author: Little Cake

ZEC surged to $1200 on September 6, with a three-month increase of 370%. Grayscale's ZEC spot ETF (ZCSH) attracted over $460 million in assets within two weeks of its launch, marking the most aggressive pricing correction for privacy coins in a decade.

However, the hottest trading discussions on Crypto Twitter have skipped over ZEC itself, pointing to a more sophisticated logic: instead of speculating on ZEC's next move at the thousand-dollar mark, it’s better to buy the "toll road" beneath it.

This road is called NEAR Intents.

Zashi Wallet and NEAR Intents: An Undervalued Pipeline

To understand this narrative, one must first recognize a key product link.

The Zashi wallet developed by Electric Coin Company is currently the most complete self-custody entry point in the ZEC ecosystem. In October 2025, Zashi launched the cross-chain exchange feature "Zashi Swaps" based on NEAR Intents, allowing users to directly exchange assets like BTC, SOL, and USDC for shielded ZEC. Shortly after, the CrossPay feature was launched, enabling a payment channel from shielded ZEC to any chain asset.

This means that NEAR Intents is not only ZEC's "entry ramp" but also its "exit ramp."

Every cross-chain exchange initiated from Zashi, regardless of direction, must pass through the settlement layer of NEAR Intents.

On February 23, 2026, NEAR Intents activated the "Fee Switch." From that day forward, all fees generated at the protocol level are uniformly collected as NEAR tokens, with 100% of the protocol fees used to repurchase NEAR on the open market. This forms a textbook value capture flywheel: the larger the transaction volume, the more fees generated, the stronger the repurchase force, and the smaller the selling pressure on NEAR.

The transmission chain circulating on Twitter is as follows: ZEC demand rises → Zashi cross-chain exchanges increase → NEAR Intents transaction volume increases → protocol earns fees → fees repurchase NEAR → NEAR forms structural buying pressure.

Data Verification

Let’s verify this narrative with data.

First, looking at the total volume, the official data panel of NEAR Intents shows that as of early September, the cumulative transaction volume is approximately $27.6 billion, covering over 26 blockchains, generating about $45 million in fees, with a 30-day transaction volume of around $3 billion.

Next, let’s look at the proportion of ZEC. Data from the end of 2025 shows that ZEC transactions account for about 10% of NEAR Intents' average daily transaction volume, equivalent to about $15 million per day. However, CoinGecko's trading pair data reveals a more aggressive reality: currently, the USDT/ZEC trading pair on NEAR Intents accounts for 27.4% of the total transaction volume, along with USDC/ZEC (7.1%), SOL/ZEC (2.5%), and ETH/ZEC (2.2%), making ZEC-related trading pairs account for nearly 40% of the trading volume share.

The most critical link is value capture.

DefiLlama data shows that NEAR Intents has generated a cumulative $45 million in fees, but the actual "protocol revenue" flowing into the protocol treasury for repurchasing NEAR is only about $5.51 million, with a 30-day protocol revenue of about $910,000, translating to a monthly average repurchase volume of about $900,000.

Early reports indicated a monthly average repurchase of about $3 million, which differs from DefiLlama's "protocol revenue" metric. The source of the discrepancy is that most of the $45 million in fees flowed to solvers (market makers/settlement parties) and distribution channels (SwapKit alone accounted for over $4.4 million, while Zashi contributed about $760,000), with only the protocol layer fees truly entering the NEAR repurchase pool.

The Fate of the Shovel Seller Depends on How Long the Gold Mine Can Be Mined

The narrative of NEAR as ZEC's "shovel seller" is logically valid.

The integration of the Zashi wallet and NEAR Intents is a real product relationship, and the repurchase mechanism after the fee switch is verifiable on-chain, with ZEC's proportion in NEAR Intents' transaction volume indeed being significant.

However, the transmission efficiency is actually far lower than the community narrative suggests and is highly dependent on the sustainability of ZEC's single asset market conditions.

If the inflow of funds into ZEC's ETF maintains its current pace over the next few weeks, this transmission chain can continue to operate; if ZEC enters a period of significant volatility or correction, the distribution of transaction volume in NEAR Intents will reveal a higher concentration risk than the "multi-chain infrastructure" narrative implies.

For traders, what truly needs to be monitored is not just whether NEAR Intents' cumulative transaction volume breaks $30 billion, but the trend of ZEC's proportion in its transaction volume. If this ratio drops from 40% to below 15%, while total transaction volume continues to grow, then NEAR has truly completed its narrative upgrade from being "ZEC's shadow" to "cross-chain settlement infrastructure."