The NEAR protocol token has climbed 15% in the past 24 hours to $2.8, extending a month-long rally that has seen NEAR’s price double over the past month.
The move comes amid the success of NEAR Intents, the network’s cross-chain transaction system. The product allows users to request the desired outcome, such as trading USDC on Ethereum for SOL on Solana, while third-party solvers execute the transaction behind the scenes.
Data from DefiLlama shows that NEAR Intents has processed more than $19 billion in cumulative volume and generated approximately $32 million in fees. The numbers brought renewed attention to the protocol after months of limited price movement.
The rally accelerated further after BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes described Hyperliquid’s NEAR, HYPE and ZEC as the “holy trinity” of crypto in a social media post, before suggesting there was a “long way to go” in his rally.
NEAR gained around 30% as traders shifted to tokens linked to artificial intelligence and blockchain infrastructure earlier in the month as institutional demand increased. The Europe-listed Bitwise NEAR Staking ETP has reached around $40 million in assets under management, after seeing $7 million in inflows in a single week.
Investors are also watching an upcoming network upgrade in June that introduces dynamic reharding. The change is designed to automatically split network fragments as demand increases, potentially improving scalability during periods of heavy usage.
Despite the recent rise, NEAR remains well below its 2022 high near $20.
NEAR is a layer 1 blockchain focused on applications, AI infrastructure and cross-chain transactions. The network uses a proof-of-stake model and presents itself as a platform designed to simplify interactions between blockchains while managing large volumes of activity via sharding.
