Matt Hougan, Chief Investment Officer of crypto asset management firm Bitwise, published a memo on October 7 positioning the NEAR Protocol as "the blockchain for AI." According to Hougan, in the July-to-September quarter, while Bitcoin rose 43% and Ethereum rose 71%, NEAR climbed 198%, making it one of the most notable names. NEAR was developed by Ilya Polosukhin, a co-author of the paper "Attention Is All You Need" that laid the foundation for generative AI, and others, and launched in 2020 as a blockchain equipped with dynamic sharding and a signature scheme resistant to quantum computers. Hougan acknowledged that the main users today are humans, but praised the fact that NEAR Intents' cumulative trading volume has surpassed 30 billion dollars and is expected to generate about 45 million dollars in fee revenue this year. Bitwise listed NRR, the first spot NEAR ETF in the United States, on NYSE Arca on September 29, while NEAR Intents announced full compensation after about 3.8 million dollars flowed out due to a bug on October 1.
NEAR ProtocolBitwise memo positions NEAR as 'the blockchain for AI' and cites NEAR Intents' $30B cumulative trading volume and ~$45M expected fee revenue, signaling real product usage.
Bitwise published a bullish memo on NEAR and listed NRR, the first US spot NEAR ETF, on NYSE Arca.
