NEAR Protocol’s token sparked fresh momentum Tuesday, jumping about 15% in 24 hours to roughly $2.80 and extending a month-long rally that has seen the coin roughly double. The uptick is being credited largely to growing activity around NEAR Intents, the network’s cross-chain transaction layer.
What is NEAR Intents? It’s a user-friendly system that lets people request an outcome — for example, swapping USDC on Ethereum for SOL on Solana — while third-party “solvers” stitch together and execute the underlying cross-chain steps. The feature has seen real traction: DeFiLlama reports NEAR Intents has handled more than $19 billion in cumulative volume and generated about $32 million in fees, figures that have put renewed spotlight on the protocol after months of muted price action.
The rally has also drawn public endorsements and rotation from traders. BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes named NEAR alongside Hyperliquid’s HYPE and ZEC as crypto’s “holy trinity” in a social post and suggested there’s a “long way to go” in the move. Earlier in the month, NEAR rose roughly 30% as investors rotated into tokens tied to AI and blockchain infrastructure.
Institutional demand appears to be picking up as well. The Bitwise NEAR Staking ETP listed in Europe has grown to about $40 million in assets under management after logging roughly $7 million of inflows in a single week — a sign some larger players are taking exposure to NEAR’s staking and yield angle.
Technical upgrades are also on the horizon. A June network upgrade will introduce dynamic resharding, which automatically splits network shards as demand rises. That change is intended to boost scalability during heavy usage periods and could help NEAR handle larger cross-chain and application workloads.
Despite the rebound, NEAR remains far below its 2022 highs near $20. The project is a layer-1, proof-of-stake blockchain focused on applications, AI infrastructure and cross-chain primitives, using sharding to scale and branding itself as a simpler on-ramp for cross-chain activity. With Intents and dynamic resharding making headlines, traders and institutions will be watching whether the network can sustain higher throughput — and the price momentum that comes with it.
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