NEAR Leads AI Token Rally as Grayscale Sees Sector More Than Doubling Broader Market Gain
Near (NEAR) has led a September rally in artificial intelligence tokens, according to Grayscale's research note published on Friday. The firm's AI crypto sector gained 54%, more than double the broader market's rise of 24%. NEAR jumped 183% during September, with other AI-linked tokens like Venice (VVV) climbing 70%, World (WLD) rising 47%, and Bittensor (TAO) adding 37%. The token's price traded over $4, up from an increase of 151% over the past 30 days.
Grayscale Head of Research Zach Pandl wrote that the AI sector is worth about $15 billion and 'we believe the AI sector could produce one or more major winners over the next five years.' He added that public blockchains could help balance the development by providing open infrastructure for agent payments, identity, private compute, and verifiable records.
Despite the rally, NEAR's ecosystem faced a setback last week when a bug was detected in NEAR Intent's Omni deposit and withdrawal infrastructure interaction with the protocol's smart contract. The vulnerability led to losses of about $3.8 million, but NEAR Intents said that 'These funds will be compensated in full.'