NEAR Protocol price surges amid $70M TVL milestone and AI focus

NEAR Protocol has experienced a price surge of approximately 15-16%, reaching levels near $2.82. This rally follows the NEAR Intent milestone incentive program achieving a Total Value Locked (TVL) of $70 million, marking a 2.5x month-over-month increase.

The growth is supported by rising futures positioning and open interest hitting yearly highs. Market sentiment is increasingly viewing NEAR as settlement infrastructure for AI agents rather than a standard layer-1 blockchain. This shift is bolstered by institutional interest, including Grayscale’s spot ETF filing and inclusion in an actively managed multi-token spot crypto ETP by T. Rowe Price.

Co-founder Illia Polosukhin has emphasized the importance of privacy as a critical infrastructure layer for an AI-agent economy. The protocol is currently focusing its roadmap on the convergence of AI and intents, user-owned AI, and expanding cross-chain access through products like NEAR Intents.