NEAR Leads AI Crypto Rally as Sector Outperforms Broader Market

Grayscale's AI crypto sector has seen a significant gain, more than doubling the broader market's rise, according to a recent research note. The sector, which includes tokens such as NEAR, Venice, Worldcoin, and Bittensor, has seen a 54% increase in September, outperforming the 24% gain of the broader crypto market. NEAR, in particular, has seen a 183% increase in September, with its price trading over $4, up 151% over the past 30 days. Zach Pandl, Grayscale's Head of Research, noted that the category is worth about $15 billion and 'we believe the AI sector could produce one or more major winners over the next five years.'

The rally has been driven in part by the potential for blockchains to serve as infrastructure for AI agent payments, identity, and private compute. Pandl wrote that public blockchains could help balance the development of AI, which remains concentrated among a handful of companies. The September gains for AI tokens have been strong, with Venice up 70%, World up 47%, and Bittensor up 37%. However, the AI sector remains the smallest of Grayscale's six major crypto sectors.

Despite the strong gains, NEAR has faced a setback in the form of a $3.8 million exploit affecting NEAR Intents' Omni deposit and withdrawal infrastructure interaction with the protocol's smart contract. NEAR Intents has stated that the funds will be compensated in full, and the contract-side vulnerability has been patched.