NEAR Protocol Enables Staking-Based Payments for All 43 AI Models

NEAR introduces staking mechanism to pay for AI inference and agents, converting locked tokens into monthly points without credit cards or token consumption.

Woofun AI reports that NEAR Protocol has launched a feature enabling users to utilize staked NEAR tokens to cover costs for confidential inference and persistent agents. This mechanism eliminates the requirement for credit card linkage by converting staked assets into monthly-calculated points, which scale with staking volume while keeping the principal funds retrievable upon unstaking. Access extends to all 43 models on the NEAR AI platform, including offerings from Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google.