NEAR Surges on Zcash Routing Demand as Bitcoin Steadies
NEAR has seen a 23% surge to $4 due to demand for Zcash routing, despite Bitcoin remaining steady above $81,000.
The catalyst for NEAR's rise is its swap service, NEAR Intents, which allows wallets to exchange tokens across separate chains without shuffling funds. Large consumer wallets, including ZODL and Vizor, have integrated NEAR Intents for ZEC swaps, resulting in a sixfold increase in daily ZEC volume passing through the service.
Notably, ZEC itself only rose 3% to trade just above $1,500, while its native token tracked traffic higher. This pattern is worth watching, as when a chain becomes the conduit for someone else's trading rush, the conduit can run ahead of what actually flows through it.
Beyond NEAR, Bitcoin's price was relatively stable, with some attributing the weekend's jump to the SEC's ruling on tokenized U.S. stocks and the short squeeze that followed. However, Jeff Mei from BTSE notes that there is little on this week's calendar to drive significant movement in the markets.
The rest of the majors saw minor gains, but nothing suggests fresh capital chasing a story; it looks more like drift following Bitcoin's weekend move.