NEAR Protocol Achieves Quantum-Safe Signing Milestone Amid Ongoing Bear Market
NEAR Protocol has made significant advancements in its development, becoming one of the first blockchains to implement a NIST-approved post-quantum signature scheme in production. The Layer 1 AI-native settlement layer announced this achievement on X on July 20th.
The upgrade also includes dynamic resharding, allowing the network to scale itself automatically. This is part of NEAR's vision for an open, integrated stack for the agent economy, which will bring together identity, liquidity, private inference, confidential execution, settlement, governance, and economics.
A potential rebound in the market could be on the horizon, as analyst Ali Martinez noted that the TD Sequential indicator gave a buy signal for NEAR on the 4-hour chart. However, the short-term trend has been bearish, with the token's price declining by 13.5% since reaching a local high of $2.06 on July 21st.
The Fibonacci retracement levels highlight the rejection from $2.80-$3.00 as coming from the 78.6% retracement zone, in line with the higher timeframe bearish trend. The CMF has flashed signs of significant selling pressure, and a drop below $1.80 could signal a continuation of the bearish trend.