Reviewed by Reviewed by Adewale Olarinde Updated 21:30 EDT October 8, 2026 Share Share Share Back to Top NEAR Protocol [NEAR] doesn’t usually get a lot of the spotlight. Lately, though, people can’t seem stop talking about it
Something has changed, and the community has noticed. What’s pulling people there?
NEAR’s third-quarter performance has attracted attention from Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan, who highlighted the token in his latest market commentary
In an October 7 report, Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan noted that NEAR rose 198% in Q3
Here’s some jaw dropping context: Bitcoin [BTC] gained 43% over the same quarter. Ethereum [ETH] gained 71%. NEAR beat both by a huge mile
Most small coins in Hougan’s view, are long shots that end badly. NEAR is one of the few he’s comfortable recommending, because it has an established business that’s already working
Monthly trading volume for the same was $4.80 billion in September. A year earlier, it was under $500 million
The previous peak was $3.65 billion in November last year
Co-founder Illia Polosukhin has a vision in place too
He says people need CEXs for fewer things every year. His envisioned future involves swapping any asset for any other, with AI agents doing a lot of the clicking
NEAR fell nearly 16% from its October 8 opening price of $5.34 to around $4.49 at press time. Earlier in the session, it had dropped as low as $4.30, marking an intraday decline of nearly 20%
If you take a good look though, you’ll see that NEAR is up 3x from its August low near $1.60
Indicators have been warning us of this for a while. RSI was above 80 a few days ago, and now it’s 52.7
MACD got bearish around the start of October, and the red bars have been getting longer since. Today’s is the biggest yet
Samyukhtha L KM is a financial journalist and market analyst at AMBCrypto. She covers key market moves, blockchain adoption, and socially-driven crypto trends. She also enjoys providing fresh takes through commentaries on emerging narratives
