NEAR Price Surges 24% Amid AI Utility Expansion

The Near protocol has seen a significant surge in price, rising by 24.52% due to increased activity on its trading markets and expansion of its confidential infrastructure.

Confidential TVL recently surpassed $70 million, triggering the network's first milestone snapshot under its incentive program.

The program allocated 333,333 milestone tokens, which will remain locked until NEAR's three-day volume-weighted average price reaches at least $3.33.

The token's AI utility expanded further through staking-based computing credits covering 43 AI models.

Leverage has built up behind the rally in derivatives markets, with open interest rising by 39.54% to $924.66 million and derivatives volume surging by 101.79% to $1.85 billion.