NEAR Leads AI Crypto Sector Rally, Grayscale Sees Potential for Major Winners

The AI crypto sector, led by NEAR, has seen a significant surge in September, with the sector's growth more than doubling the broader market's rise. According to Grayscale, the AI crypto sector gained 54% in September, while the broader crypto market rose around 24%. NEAR was up 151% over the past 30 days, with its price trading over $4 at the time of writing.

Grayscale's Head of Research, Zach Pandl, pointed to public blockchains as a potential solution for the AI agent economy, providing open infrastructure for agent payments, identity, private compute, and verifiable records. Pandl noted that the AI sector could produce one or more major winners over the next five years and that the category is worth about $15 billion.

However, the sector's growth was not without its setbacks, as a $3.8 million exploit affected NEAR Intents, a bug in the Omni deposit and withdrawal infrastructure interaction with the protocol's smart contract. NEAR Intents has assured that the affected funds will be compensated in full, and the contract-side vulnerability has been patched.