In the latest report, Grayscale’s researcher has shared factors behind the recent growth in the NEAR token’s value in May. In May, the cryptocurrency soared by around 115%, helping its value to climb above $2.37 with a market cap of $3.08 billion. The network has made major developments to support AI agent infrastructure, along with changes in its tokenomics. On May 29, Grayscale Investments released a report on NEAR Protocol, where it revealed factors behind the cryptocurrency’s strong performance this month, which are privacy and artificial intelligence. “The NEAR token had a strong showing in May as crypto markets began to recognize the project’s improved fundamentals. We expect Near to play a key role in AI agent commerce, which could drive more value to its native token,” it stated in the report . According to CoinMarketCap , NEAR has soared by more than 77% in the last 30 days. The cryptocurrency is currently trading at around $2.36 with a market capitalization of $3.06 billion. The daily trading volume has soared to around $866 million. What Grayscale Research Says About NEAR According to the official post, the NEAR token has soared by approximately 115% in May. Amid the bearish sentiment in the cryptocurrency market, the surge in NEAR token’s value is making it the best performing asset in the Grayscale Crypto Sectors framework in that particular time period. The NEAR blockchain network was rolled out in 2020, but its adoption has recently grown after major developments on the network. One of the major developments on the network is the latest product known as NEAR Intents. This product is working like an AI agent for transactions that are taking place on the blockchain. In this feature, users just need to give their inputs by sharing their “intents,” and after that, the feature will take all complex decisions behind the scenes. It was launched in 2025, and as of now, it has executed more than 25 million swaps with a cumulative value of around $20 billion. Apart from this, there is another major development for AI agents, which is known as IronClaw. It is a NEAR AI agent framework, which comes with confidential inference infrastructure. “AI agents need privacy tools as they are integrated more deeply into corporate workflows. To address this, Near has built IronClaw, an AI agent framework integrated with Near AI’s confidential inference infrastructure. This enables AI agents to securely execute tasks while ensuring that underlying data, credentials, and user activity remain private,” stated in the report. Grayscale’s report has also mentioned the change in NEAR Protocol’s tokenomics, which has improved the supply/demand balance for the cryptocurrency. In October 2025, the NEAR community made a decision to implement a plan to cut the network’s inflation rate from 5% to 2.5%. After that, in February 2026, NEAR made a major change in its revenue model. This helps the network to distribute the earnings in NEAR tokens. Grayscale stated in the report, “With these building blocks, Near is aiming to create the core infrastructure for agentic commerce—a platform that enables AI agents to seamlessly coordinate economic transactions while underlying users maintain ownership of their data, assets, and identity.” In the last few months, many blockchains have been preparing to boost the service linked with artificial intelligence, such as agentic payments .
