AI Token NEAR Surges Over 10% Intraday, Approaching $6 to Hit Highest Since January

TradingKey - NEAR surged over 10% again today, expanding its year-to-date gain to 285%.

On October 12, as Bitcoin (BTC) broke through the $8.4 level, driving a recovery in market risk appetite, leading AI agent NEAR Protocol (NEAR) demonstrated extremely strong Alpha leadership resilience, surging over 10% intraday to approach the key $6 mark, reaching a high of $5.95 today to set a new swing high since January this year.

NEAR price chart, source: TradingView

In February this year, NEAR's price fell below the $1 mark, dropping to a low around $0.85, a new low since 2021. Subsequently, NEAR experienced an oversold rebound, rising above $3 in June. Entering the third quarter, NEAR's price fell into another trough, continuing to decline and dropping to around $1.5 by the end of September.

In early October, as Bitcoin and Ethereum came under broad pressure from leverage liquidations, NEAR demonstrated strong downside resistance and safe-haven qualities, exploding with a single-day surge of over 10% when BTC recovered to $84,000. To date, NEAR's price has gained a cumulative 285%, far outperforming mainstream cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. Over the same period, BTC declined 4% and ETH fell 13%.

NEAR's price performance this year has been impressive, driven mainly by three major catalysts: the transaction volume of NEAR Intents and integration of FastNEAR infrastructure significantly boosted on-chain real revenue and developer retention; plans to gradually lower NEAR's maximum annual inflation rate from 2.5% to 1.6% eased market concerns over sell pressure dilution; and the listing of the Bitwise Spot NEAR ETF (NRR) opened buying channels for traditional U.S. stock brokerages and institutional investors.