Research note · NEAR

RHEA: NEAR's liquidity hub, with real revenue and buybacks

RHEA merged Ref Finance and Burrow into ~95% of NEAR's DeFi TVL, is building the DeFi layer for shielded ZEC, and sends 100% of DEX revenue into RHEA buybacks.

30d protocol revenue$321K3.1x avg month
mcap / revenue~8x~20x on FDV
DEX revenue to buybacks100%~$3M a year at current pace
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Research snapshot · 19 Oct 2026

The liquidity hub of NEAR

RHEA is the merger of Ref Finance (DEX) and Burrow (lending), NEAR's two flagship DeFi protocols, with ~95% of NEAR's DeFi TVL in one place. It builds for NEAR, onboarding projects and providing liquidity, and NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin is an advisor. When RHEA was exploited for $18.4M in April, the ecosystem helped: ~$18M was recovered or frozen and RHEA covered the remaining ~$0.4M.

The Zcash bridge

The team built Noir, the first browser extension wallet for Zcash. Shielded ZEC can be supplied as collateral, used to borrow, swap and trade perps, routed through NEAR Intents with no manual bridging. Next on the list: a proposal where Zcash settles and NEAR executes, so any DeFi app on the protocol works straight from a Zcash wallet, plus a confidential-by-default wallet on NEAR.

Revenue and buybacks

RHEA made $321K in protocol revenue over the last 30 days, 3.1x the average month since launch in March 2025. The DEX is the main driver (~$11K in July, $149K in September, now ~80% of revenue), and 100% of DEX revenue goes into monthly RHEA buybacks, ~$3M a year or ~10% of market cap at the current pace. On ~$3.9M annualized revenue and a ~$32M market cap that is ~8x mcap/revenue and ~20x on FDV, against a ~37x FDV/revenue median for the revenue peer group. On top, ~540K RHEA have been burned since 21 Sep from xRHEA unstake fees.

Why the setup is interesting

RHEA sits between two strong narratives: privacy, with ZEC as the go-to asset for private money, and quantum resilience, with NEAR among the first major chains with post-quantum signing on mainnet. Combined with real revenue and buybacks, that makes it one of the more interesting DeFi setups.

Sources & related reading

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