Crypto's AI Future could be NEAR

NEAR Protocol has been one of the buzziest L1s this month and is up 74% in the last 30 days! What potent narrative has sent NEAR surging to new cycle highs, and which early play can you use to enhance your NEAR upside?

AI-related stocks are ripping in TradFi, causing crypto market participants to FOMO for exposure and making them more than willing to ape any token with the even slightest relationship to AI.

While the hype surrounding the emerging AI x Crypto intersection has caused some to bid unproven AI memecoins with little fundamentals, others are betting on the “picks and shovels” crypto infrastructure plays that will invariably facilitate the mania.

Any blockchain has the potential to play home to the killer AI-enabled cryptography protocols that promise to revolutionize the industry, but NEAR has emerged as a top candidate. Many have channeled their bullish energy on NEAR’s AI future after seeing news that the blockchain’s founder, who previously worked as an AI researcher, will be participating in a panel next week with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at the company's AI conference.

Alongside the pump in NEAR have come massive gains for AURORA, an EVM implementation within the JavaScript/Rust native NEAR blockchain that allows developers to create and deploy smart contracts written using Ethereum’s programming language.

AURORA has outpaced the gains made by NEAR since broader crypto markets began pumping in late October of last year, as its relatively low market capitalization – 97% smaller than that of NEAR – allows for smaller dollar flows to the asset to translate into greater percentage returns for holders, increasing the token’s reflexivity to both the upside and downside.

This is the AI x Crypto Cycle on Bankless

AI x Crypto is real. The fundamentals are there & so is the speculative degeneracy.

BanklessDavid Hoffman