NEAR Protocol has jumped roughly 6% to around $5.50 and moved above Stellar by market capitalization, putting NEAR back among the 20 largest cryptocurrencies.
Summary
- NEAR rose roughly 6% to $5.50, lifting its market capitalization above Stellar’s $6.97 billion valuation.
- CoinGecko ranks NEAR twentieth by market cap, one place ahead of Stellar after Thursday’s rally.
- NEAR Intents has processed more than $33 billion across 35 chains, according to official data.
- Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan says NEAR combines an operating crypto business with long-term AI ambitions.
- Daily RSI stood near 68, below the 70 level commonly used to indicate overbought conditions.
CoinGecko data showed NEAR ranked No. 20 on Oct. 8 with a market value of roughly $7.2 billion, while Stellar sat at No. 21 near $6.97 billion. NEAR traded around $5.50 during the move, while XLM changed hands near $0.199 after falling almost 4% over 24 hours.
Trading activity increased alongside the NEAR price rally. Its 24-hour volume stood near $1.26 billion, compared with roughly $177 million for XLM at the latest CoinGecko reading. NEAR had about 1.31 billion tokens circulating, while Stellar’s circulating supply stood near 35 billion XLM.
NEAR price jumps as XLM falls down the rankings
NEAR’s move into the top 20 came as the two assets moved in opposite directions. CoinGecko showed NEAR gaining roughly 6% during the day and about 0.6% over seven days, while XLM had lost close to 4% in 24 hours and 12.8% over the week.
The market-cap gap remained relatively small. At the latest readings, NEAR was valued near $7.18 billion against approximately $6.97 billion for Stellar, leaving a difference of roughly $200 million. Cryptocurrency rankings can change quickly as token prices move.
NEAR has recovered sharply from levels below $4 seen in September. CoinGecko historical data shows the token closed at $3.59 on Sept. 19 before moving above $5 later that month. It closed Oct. 7 at $5.33 before extending the advance on Thursday.
At around $5.50, NEAR remained well below its record high of $20.44. CoinGecko puts its all-time low at $0.5268, leaving the current price more than ten times above that level.
NEAR Intents volume passes $33 billion
Activity around NEAR Intents has risen alongside the token’s price recovery. The protocol’s official website now shows more than $33 billion in cumulative volume across 35 chains, up from the $30 billion figure cited earlier this week.
NEAR Intents lets users request cross-chain transactions while outside market makers, known as solvers, compete to execute them. The system is designed to remove some of the steps involved in moving assets manually between chains.
NEAR’s revenue dashboard currently lists $144.06 million in Confidential Intents total value locked, up 335.1% over 90 days. The dashboard says protocol fees feed several revenue channels, including front-end fees, business integrations and quote improvement.
The growth follows a security incident earlier this month. As crypto.news previously reported in its coverage of the $3.8 million NEAR Intents exploit, the service paused activity after a vulnerability involving its Omni deposit and withdrawal system. Co-founder Illia Polosukhin said the vulnerability was fixed and affected users would receive compensation.
The core NEAR blockchain and NEAR token were not compromised in that incident, according to Polosukhin.
Bitwise points to NEAR’s existing business and AI plans
Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan has drawn attention to NEAR while discussing smaller crypto assets that have existing activity alongside longer-term growth ideas.
In an Oct. 7 research paper, Bitwise said NEAR Intents had already processed more than $32 billion across over 35 blockchains at the time of publication. The live Intents website has since moved above $33 billion.
Hougan separately described NEAR’s existing Intents activity as a business that already has measurable usage while its effort to build infrastructure for AI agents remains a longer-term bet.
In his Oct. 8 post, Hougan wrote that “the business is already here, and the dream is big and bold.” He pointed to Intents, private AI infrastructure and NEAR’s plan to let software agents transact across different blockchains.
Bitwise’s research says NEAR AI Cloud runs open-weight AI models inside trusted execution environments designed to keep user data private. Confidential Intents, launched in February, targets traders and institutions seeking private cross-chain execution.
NEAR received another U.S. market route on Sept. 29 when Bitwise launched the Bitwise NEAR ETF under ticker NRR on NYSE Arca. Bitwise calls it the first spot NEAR exchange-traded product in the U.S. and charges a 0.75% management fee. The manager intends to stake part of the fund’s NEAR holdings.
As crypto.news reported in its coverage of the Bitwise NEAR ETF launch, the product gives U.S. investors direct NEAR exposure through a regulated exchange-traded vehicle.
NEAR price now faces resistance around $5.50 to $6
The latest rally has taken NEAR back into an area traders have been watching as resistance. CoinGecko’s current 24-hour range stretches from roughly $4.96 to $5.56, placing the token close to the upper end of its daily range.
Crypto analyst Giannis Andreou said the first major confirmation area sits between $5.50 and $6.00. In his weekly-chart scenario, a close above that range followed by a successful retest “would strengthen the case for a broader trend reversal.”
Andreou identified $4.00 to $4.60 as the first support area if NEAR pulls back. His next projected resistance zone sits between $7.50 and $9.00, with the previous $20.44 all-time high remaining much further away. The analyst said losing $4 would weaken his bullish setup.
A separate daily chart showed NEAR trading above the Bollinger Band midpoint at $4.81 and below the upper band near $5.74. The lower band stood around $3.88.
The Relative Strength Index was near 68.31, below the conventional overbought threshold of 70 but well above the neutral 50 level. Its RSI moving average stood near 71.47, showing that momentum had cooled from earlier readings while price remained close to recent highs.
Futures activity remained elevated. CoinGecko currently reports roughly $2.88 billion in perpetual open interest and an eight-hour funding rate near 0.0085% for NEAR markets.
Analyst CW said open interest and net position delta were rising during the rally, which he interpreted as strong buying pressure in futures markets. Open interest measures outstanding derivatives positions and does not by itself establish whether NEAR will continue rising.
In related coverage, crypto.news previously identified the $5.50 to $6.20 zone as NEAR’s main resistance area after the token gained more than 135% over 30 days. The Oct. 6 analysis placed initial support near $4.70 if buyers failed to hold the breakout area.
Disclosure: This article does not represent investment advice. The content and materials featured on this page are for educational purposes only.
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