Recently, NEAR Protocol co-founder Illia announced that financial activities on near.com have been set to privacy mode by default. Now, all financial activity, including balance lookups, deposits, swaps, and transfers, will be visible only to the account owner. It is an exciting change that establishes on-chain financial privacy as the default standard.

This news is gaining attention as it aligns with the recent growth of the Real World Asset (RWA) market on Stellar, which has surpassed $4 billion compared to the previous year. One of the main reasons institutional players have hesitated to adopt public blockchains is the complete transparency of all transaction history. While Stellar has been expanding its regulation-friendly RWA infrastructure, NEAR’s move directly addresses the demand for transaction security and confidentiality that institutions require.

As the transparency of open blockchains has been a barrier to institutional capital inflow, platforms that combine privacy guarantees with practical financial utility are likely to strengthen their position. It will be interesting to see if this change leads to an actual increase in on-chain financial transaction volume.

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