Near Protocol Adds Default Privacy Protection for Perpetual Contracts

Near Protocol (NEAR) has introduced default privacy protection for perpetual contract trading, obscuring the connection between positions and accounts. Users can continue trading with their existing accounts, making it difficult for external parties to identify which account owns a specific position. Near Protocol announced on X that near.com's perpetual contract trading is now automatically set to privacy mode as of 5:29 PM KST on October 18th. The feature is supported by Hyperliquid. The core focus is hiding the link between positions and accounts rather than the positions themselves. Users no longer need to create new accounts to open positions with their existing ones. Near Protocol has been expanding privacy features to reduce the scope of on-chain financial activity visibility, having previously transitioned balance, deposit, swap, profit, and payment activities to a private structure visible only to users. Perpetual contracts are derivative products without expiration dates that maintain position through regular funding payments instead of fixed settlement dates. This update extends Near Protocol's privacy features beyond spot exchanges or fund transfers into derivatives trading. However, details on supported contract types, available regions, leverage limits, and specific implementation methods remain undisclosed. Privacy protection is now the default setting, eliminating the need for users to manually enable it. The scope of position attribution hiding and transaction record visibility levels can be confirmed through actual service interfaces and additional guidance.