- NEAR surged more than 9% as bulls rode the latest artificial intelligence-driven optimism.
- Nvidia and OpenAI’s partnership and the announced up-to-$100 billion investment provide a major boost to ecosystem confidence.
- In the short term, NEAR’s price could target a 200% rally to above $8.20.
The price of the NEAR Protocol token rose about 9% over the past 24 hours as AI-related developments kept investor sentiment elevated.
With AI-focused tokens like AI Companions exploding higher, NEAR climbed more than 9% to a peak of $3.15.
The move represented a strong recovery from intraday lows amid renewed enthusiasm for AI-centered projects. These gains contrast with the broader crypto market’s earlier instability following a $1.7 billion liquidation event that caused sharp losses.
NEAR Protocol price climbs amid major AI news
NEAR Protocol’s token posted a robust 9% gain on 23 September 2025, trading around $3.15 at midday, according to exchange data.
The price increase follows a consolidation phase earlier in the week when NEAR dipped below $2.90 amid wider market pressure.
Trading volume also rose notably, climbing more than 25% to $370 million as investor confidence returned to NEAR.
At the core of this momentum is NEAR’s positioning as a “blockchain for AI,” a narrative reinforced by recent ecosystem developments.
On 16 September, NEAR announced a significant integration with Allora Network that enhances its Shade Agent infrastructure with predictive AI capabilities.
The collaboration launches four AI engineering competitions focused on price-prediction challenges across major blockchains, including NEAR, Solana, Bitcoin and Ethereum.
By enabling autonomous bots to interact seamlessly across multiple chains while protecting data privacy, Shade Agents exemplify NEAR’s vision to serve as the “execution layer for the AI economy.”
This development has helped drive the combined market capitalization of AI-related tokens above $34 billion.
Developers and capital are flowing back into leading AI projects, and NEAR’s scalable, sharded architecture gives it an edge in attracting both.
Nvidia’s $100 billion bet on OpenAI
Fueling the excitement further was the seismic announcement from industry leaders OpenAI and Nvidia on 22 September 2025, which sent ripples through both AI and crypto sectors.
Nvidia revealed plans to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI to deploy at least 10 gigawatts of AI datacenters powered by millions of its GPUs — described by executives as the “largest AI infrastructure deployment in history.”
The first gigawatt is scheduled for rollout by the end of 2026 using Nvidia’s Vera Rubin platform, with the partnership intended to accelerate OpenAI’s pursuit of more capable, agentic systems.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman emphasized the initiative’s role in scaling compute for agentic AI and multimodal applications.
Notably, the landmark partnership boosted Nvidia’s stock by nearly 4%, adding roughly $170 billion in market value, and strengthened the broader AI supercycle.
Riding that wave, NEAR has gained about 9% over the past 24 hours and is up over 16% on the week.
Price outlook
With AI momentum continuing to build, analysts foresee an upward trajectory for tokens within the ecosystem. Projects such as Worldcoin, Bittensor and Render are showing significant network growth, and NEAR Protocol stands out among them.
Previous upward flips have shown that many tokens positioned at the intersection of AI and blockchain can break out strongly.
Heading into 2025 and beyond, NEAR is positioned as a leading platform, driven by AI integrations, developer adoption and favorable macro conditions such as recent interest-rate cuts by the Federal Reserve. These factors have kept price action focused at key levels.
In the near term, network growth metrics and technical strength will be critical. The daily chart suggests NEAR could retest resistance around $3.50 and target higher levels at $4.00 and then $8.20 for a potential 200% rally.
On the downside, support levels are likely near $2.30 and $1.89.