**[NEAR Protocol Launches Staking-Based AI Fee Payment Feature]** BlockBeats News, July 31: NEAR Protocol announced that it has launched a staking-based AI fee payment feature. Users can pay for confidential inference and continuously running agent fees by staking NEAR, without the need to link a credit card. The staked NEAR will be converted into monthly computation credits, with the credit amount increasing as the staking amount grows. The funds themselves are not consumed and can be withdrawn after unstaking. All 43 models on NEAR AI (including Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, etc.) can be accessed through this staking mechanism. [Original Link]