NEAR Protocol, a blockchain network, continued its recent price increase on Sunday, rising about 5% in the last day to $2.54. Its total market value is now around $3.29 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.
This cryptocurrency has seen a significant increase in value this week, rising over 66%. This makes it one of the best-performing top 50 cryptocurrencies based on its total market value.
This increase is notable, especially since the overall market hasn’t moved much. While Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency, only rose slightly (0.22%) and the total crypto market value remained almost flat (0.10%), NEAR Protocol’s gains seem to be specific to the token itself, fueled by a combination of positive developments rather than just general market trends.
As of today, NEAR had roughly $782 million worth of trading activity in the last 24 hours. This trading volume represents about 23.64% of its total market value. All 1.29 billion NEAR tokens are currently in circulation, meaning there are no more tokens to be released. If all potential tokens were in circulation, the total market value would be approximately $3.29 billion.
What is driving the rally
As a researcher, I’ve been tracking this recent increase, and it seems to be the result of a few different things happening at the same time over the last week. These factors built on each other, leading to the surge we’re now seeing.
Arthur Hayes’ “Holy Trinity” Endorsement
Arthur Hayes, a co-founder of BitMEX and CIO of Maelstrom, recently highlighted NEAR Protocol as one of his top three altcoins, along with Hyperliquid and Zcash. This announcement caused NEAR’s price to jump 30% in a single day, reaching a six-month high of over $2.30.
As someone closely watching the crypto markets, I’ve observed that Hayes continues to be a highly influential figure. When he signals support for a particular direction, it really moves the market – we saw this recently with over $9 million worth of short positions being closed out, according to data from CoinGlass, as the price reacted to his stance.
NVIDIA Earnings Spillover and AI Token Rotation
The market rally was also boosted by NVIDIA, the leading maker of AI chips, and its strong earnings report from May 20th. NVIDIA announced record revenue of $81.6 billion – an 85% increase compared to the same time last year – and profits of $58.3 billion for the quarter.
The findings showed that investment in AI infrastructure is growing quickly, and cryptocurrency traders began shifting their money into tokens related to artificial intelligence.
Historically, the price of NEAR has tended to increase when NVIDIA announces its earnings. For example, in February, NEAR’s value jumped over 50% after NVIDIA released its Q4 2025 results.
NEAR Protocol is uniquely positioned in the growing world of artificial intelligence because it was designed from the start to work with AI technology. Illia Polosukhin, a co-founder of NEAR, is a machine learning expert who helped create the original research that powers many of today’s AI models – a paper called “Attention Is All You Need.” Building on this strong foundation, NEAR has been developing tools for AI agents, including a marketplace for these agents and a secure place to trade for GPU processing power.
Dynamic resharding and v2.13 network upgrade
NEAR Protocol announced a major upgrade scheduled for June – its biggest since the network first launched. This upgrade, version 2.13, introduces dynamic resharding, a feature that automatically adjusts the network’s capacity. It does this by adding or removing ‘shards’ – essentially separate processing units – based on how much activity there is, all without needing votes or manual intervention from network operators.
In the past, adding new data storage to the NEAR network was a slow process, taking weeks of planning and careful implementation. Now, with dynamic resharding, this is no longer a hurdle. This improvement is especially important for NEAR’s plans to support AI applications, where automated programs need to make transactions incredibly quickly, as reported by The Crypto Times on May 22.
This update will add a new, highly secure signing method called ML-DSA (FIPS-204), which protects against attacks from future quantum computers. This makes NEAR one of the first major blockchains to offer both improved scalability and protection against quantum computing threats in one release.
AI Privacy Features
From May 20th to 22nd, the NEAR team launched new AI privacy tools. These tools remove passwords and personal details from user requests before they’re sent to AI models, boosting confidence in both AI technology and data security.
Institutional interest building
While many individual investors are driving the recent price increase, it’s not the whole story. Bitwise, a company that manages crypto assets, has seen significant growth in its NEAR staking product – around $36 million in total – and its CEO, Hunter Horsley, reported $7 million flowed into the product during the first week of the price surge.
Grayscale, a leading digital asset investment company, has applied to turn its NEAR Trust into a spot exchange-traded fund (ETF) called GSNR. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is expected to make a decision on this application around September 2026, as reported by CoinMarketCap. Additionally, Bitwise filed a similar application for a spot NEAR ETF in May 2025, which is still under review. If either ETF is approved, it would allow more regulated institutional investors to enter the market.
Technical picture
Looking at the 1-hour chart on TradingView, NEAR/USDT is currently trading at $2.548 on Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange. It briefly reached $2.578 during the current session. Since May 24th, the token has consistently stayed above $2.40, establishing a solid base after breaking through a previous resistance level.
The Relative Strength Index (RSI), measured over the last 14 hours, is currently at 53.31, which is considered neutral. This indicates the token’s price has stabilized after a recent surge, peaking around May 22nd and 23rd, and is no longer overbought. It’s cooled down from its initial upward movement without experiencing a significant price drop.
Trading volume during this recent price increase is lower than it was during the strong breakout on May 22nd and 23rd, when daily trading volume briefly exceeded $1 billion. This difference in volume is something to keep an eye on. If NEAR Protocol can attract more buyers and confidently move above $2.60, it could signal further price increases. Conversely, the $2.40 to $2.50 range now provides support, with $2.30 acting as a stronger support level based on the initial breakout.
NEAR remains well below its all-time high of $20.44 set in January 2022.
The bigger picture
The recent increase in NEAR’s price is due to several factors: a notable endorsement, positive momentum in the artificial intelligence industry (particularly from NVIDIA), significant improvements to the NEAR protocol itself, and increasing investment from institutions through products like ETFs.
Currently ranked 30th by market capitalization, this token has performed better than most of the top 50 cryptocurrencies over the last week. Continued success likely hinges on two upcoming events: the planned v2.13 upgrade in June, which improves how the network handles data, and the SEC’s decision regarding the Grayscale GSNR ETF application.
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2026-05-25 20:52