NEAR's Investment Case: Blockchain Business Drives Value, AI Offers Future Upside, Says Bitwise CIO

NEAR’s investment case is primarily anchored by its robust blockchain business, with its burgeoning artificial intelligence ambitions serving as a significant secondary benefit, according to Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan. This perspective emphasizes NEAR’s current utility and revenue generation as the core value proposition, while its AI-related initiatives represent potential future growth.

Blockchain Foundation: NEAR Intents Drives Performance
The bedrock of NEAR’s investment case lies in its established blockchain operations, particularly its NEAR Intents product. This system has facilitated a cumulative trading volume exceeding $30 billion and is projected to generate approximately $45 million in fees this year. A portion of these fees is allocated to token buybacks, directly benefiting token holders. Hougan underscored this current business activity, stating, “When I’m investing in NEAR, I’m buying an exciting blockchain business,” characterizing the AI opportunity as “additional upside.”

NEAR Intents streamlines cross-chain transactions by enabling users to define desired outcomes, with a network of solvers managing the execution. This functionality simplifies the often-complex process of navigating separate wallets, bridges, and exchanges, thereby enhancing accessibility for ordinary users. The success of NEAR Intents in attracting human users provides a tangible basis for its investment case, irrespective of the pace of AI agent adoption.

Market Performance Snapshot
In the third quarter, the NEAR token experienced a substantial surge of 198%, significantly outperforming both Bitcoin, which gained 43%, and Ethereum, which rose 71%. This performance highlights current market interest in the NEAR token, further bolstering the narrative of a strong existing blockchain business.

AI Ambitions: Future Potential and Uncertainties
Beyond its current blockchain utility, NEAR is positioning itself as essential infrastructure for AI agents to transact with each other and the broader digital economy. This ambition is underpinned by NEAR’s foundational contributions to AI research, notably co-founder Illia Polosukhin’s co-authorship of the 2017 paper that introduced the transformer architecture, a critical component of modern large language models. Hougan described NEAR’s strategy as developing valuable services today that could support a larger future market for autonomous agents. He also noted progress in confidential AI infrastructure, designed to safeguard data during processing.

However, the ultimate extent to which NEAR will capture the market for AI agents and the timeline for the development of agentic finance remain subjects of uncertainty. Hougan acknowledged that human activity currently constitutes the majority of NEAR’s usage, and NEAR Intents has gained traction by simplifying crypto for individuals, rather than through widespread adoption by AI agents. His overarching argument suggests that investors can evaluate NEAR based on its existing products generating activity and fees, while its role in an economy of AI agents represents a longer-term prospect.

In conclusion, according to the memo, NEAR’s investment case is firmly supported by its current blockchain business, exemplified by the success of NEAR Intents. Its AI ambitions present a significant, though less certain, avenue for future growth, offering additional upside potential for investors.

Why This Matters

The materials describe a narrow update: Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan stated that NEAR’s investment case is based on its existing blockchain business, particularly NEAR Intents, and that its AI ambitions represent additional upside potential. The pace at which agentic finance will develop.

Broader Context

Source materials place the market analysis in this context: Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan’s weekly CIO memo.