NEAR Climbs Into Crypto's Top 20 After 140% Monthly Surge
Published October 8, 2026, 12:20 UTC. Reporting via Cointelegraph, U.Today, CoinGecko and the NEAR Intents Explorer.
NEAR Protocol's native token has climbed into the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, capping a month-long rally that left most of the market behind. The token rose 138% over the last 30 days, according to CoinGecko data cited by Cointelegraph.
At the time of writing, NEAR traded around $5.51, up about 7% over 24 hours, with a market cap of about $7.2 billion and 24-hour trading volume reaching roughly $1.2 billion, Cointelegraph reported. That valuation puts NEAR ahead of Stellar (XLM), which holds a market cap of nearly $7 billion.
The $7.2 billion flip of Stellar
The move above Stellar is NEAR's first appearance in the top 20. It came on a day when most large tokens fell: Bitcoin traded near $82,900 as the total crypto market cap dropped 4.4% to $2.83 trillion, according to Pluang market data. NEAR's gain made it one of the session's few large-cap risers, alongside Jupiter, which climbed more than 13%.
NEAR Intents passes $31 billion in volume
Much of the rally has tracked the growth of NEAR Intents, the chain's cross-chain trading protocol. The NEAR Intents Explorer shows the protocol has handled more than $31 billion in cumulative transaction volume, making it one of the largest intent-based trading networks in crypto.
The first U.S. spot NEAR ETF
NEAR's rise also follows the September 29 launch of the first U.S. spot exchange-traded product tracking the token. The Bitwise fund trades on NYSE Arca under the ticker NRR, offering investors exposure to NEAR without directly holding the crypto, Cointelegraph reported. The listing gave U.S. investors their first regulated one-ticker way to buy the rally.
A post-quantum token launches on NEAR
The breakout's capstone, as reported by U.Today, was the commercial launch of the first post-quantum asset on the near.com platform: the QTC token of the Quantus Network, protected against attacks by future supercomputers through the ML-DSA cryptographic standard approved by NIST. NEAR Intents' Confidential Intents feature lets users swap QTC directly and confidentially for more than 180 assets across 30 blockchains, including Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana, in one click from their wallets, bypassing traditional bridges, U.Today reported.
The $3.8 million exploit that got reversed
The rally survived a scare last week. NEAR Intents suffered a $3.8 million exploit involving its deposit and withdrawal infrastructure, but on October 2, general manager Alex Shevchenko said all stolen funds had been returned, a day after the breach was disclosed, Cointelegraph reported. The fast recovery appears to have limited the damage to sentiment, and the token kept climbing through the week.
This article is news reporting and is not investment advice.
Sources
- NEAR Intents Explorer, cumulative transaction volume data, primary source
- CoinGecko, NEAR market capitalization and price data, primary source
- Cointelegraph, NEAR Climbs Into Top 20 Cryptocurrencies With $7.2B Market Cap (Oct. 8, 2026), secondary source
- U.Today, NEAR Protocol Hits Top 20 on First-Ever Post-Quantum Asset Launch (Oct. 8, 2026), secondary source
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