Known for its superpower, Near tends to destroy any trend it engages in, even strong trends like AI Agents cannot withstand.
But well, looking at it objectively, I will gather a bit more information for you all.
1.$NEAR What to do with AI
- Clearly, everyone can see that Near is originally L1, but later on, due to the founder's capability in AI from the past, they also ventured into AI because the AI trend is too hot. However, after some time, it can be seen that Near also has real capabilities in AI, not just superficial.
- @near_ai currently has over 600 AI Agents built, with 2.1k Agent Versions built from 63 source Models, including famous Open Models like DeepSeek R1, 3, llama,...
- At Ethdenver 2025, the NEAR AI team introduced an interesting collaboration of progressive thinking groups to establish the Open Agents Alliance (OAA), including Coinbase Onramp & AgentKit, Aethir, Akash, Phala, Bitte,... to build an open AI infrastructure, facilitating the deployment of AI technology in a decentralized manner.
- After that, the Founder of Near also appeared on Fox Business to talk about his vision of building User-owned AI => Overall, the Near team has had this vision of building this type of AI even before the AI Agent wave (the Redacted period), but I don't understand why they were so quiet during that time until the end of the wave to finally build.
2. Other products are still developing
- The new update NEAR Protocol 2.5.0 introduces Resharding V3, increasing the number of shards from 6 to 8, improving cross-chain throughput.
- Near intents have expanded to $GNO, now supporting nearly 10 chains. Additionally, HOT Wallet's omni chain wallet has expanded to multiple chains like Stellar, Kava,... recently collaborating with @gasdotzip to facilitate seamless gas payments across more than 120+ chains.
- Ref finance and Burrow have merged, rebranding as @rhea_finance to seek a new future for DeFi on NEAR, with $RHEA launching a 3-token system to incentivize upcoming DeFi.
3. Personal conclusion
- It can be seen that NEAR devs are still diligently working, and the product launch speed is unprecedentedly fast, continuously updating and improving what they are doing to become better and better.
- This does not necessarily mean that the price will increase, but somewhere it can be seen that they are passionate about their work, while the overall market is doing poorly.
- I am purely into Research, so I just update information, not a tech fanatic at all. After all, seeing the team working hard is better than a team that's out playing and neglecting the project, right? (many projects are in such a situation)
#steven_research
