Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan has laid out an aggressively bullish long-term case for NEAR Protocol, projecting the layer-1 token could reach $155.85 by 2030 in a base-case scenario, with a maximum projection of $562.81 — more than 100 times its current value. His worst-case scenario puts NEAR at $1.63. Speaking on The Rollup podcast, Hougan said even a 40x to 50x rally would still leave NEAR valued below today’s Ethereum, and he pushed back on the idea that the foundational layer for agentic finance could not become more valuable than Ethereum at the current bear-market depths.
The thesis hinges on autonomous AI agents handling payments, trading, bookings and asset management. Hougan believes this on-chain activity would require infrastructure that moves money between applications without user complexity — a role NEAR is targeting through NEAR Intents, which has already processed close to $30 billion in cross-chain transactions. Bitwise’s 2030 base case assumes roughly 328 million AI agents each carrying out 1,000 transactions a year at an average cost of $5, applying a 0.3% fee and a 50x valuation multiple. Hougan said NEAR does not need to dominate the AI economy for the thesis to work because its existing blockchain business provides a backstop.
Bitwise also launched a spot NEAR ETF on NYSE Arca under the ticker NRR in late September, charging 0.75% annually and offering staking exposure with an estimated annual yield of 5.3%. Meanwhile, futures data from Coinglass shows NEAR open interest hit a record $1.92 billion on October 12, up from $300 million to $450 million in July and August. NEAR traded around $5.88 at the peak but later pulled back to about $5.07, with open interest cooling to roughly $1.5 billion. The RSI has fallen from above 75 to around 55, with support near $4.60 and $4.30, while buyers need to reclaim $5.50 before another test of $6.00.
