NEAR AI tops 1 million NEAR staked: What it means for the NEAR Protocol price

Published on 10/26/2026 at 07:15 | Editorial responsibility: Rafael Müller, Editor-in-Chief AD HOC NEWS

Bitwise's fund added 992,689 USD on October 23. The NEAR Protocol price is 4.49 USD as of October 26, 2026, down 0.01 percent.

Network use and market data

NEAR AI reported more than 1 million NEAR staked for inference on October 21, 2026.
NEAR funds recorded 992,689 USD of net inflows on October 23, 2026.
The NEAR Protocol price stands at 4.49 USD as of October 26, 2026, 0.01 percent below the UTC daily close of October 25, 2026.
NEAR's MPC network had 17 live mainnet operators on October 15, 2026.

NEAR Protocol, XCRYPTONEAR9, Illustration mit AI erstellt.

NEAR Protocol (NEAR) has more than 1 million NEAR staked for artificial intelligence inference, a milestone reported on October 21, 2026, by Crypto.news. The NEAR Protocol price stands at 4.49 USD as of October 26, 2026, down 0.01 percent compared with the UTC daily close of October 25, 2026, while circulating supply totals 1.31 billion NEAR, according to Investing.com.

AI inference passes 1 million staked NEAR

NEAR AI uses staking rewards to pay for computing credits while users retain ownership of the underlying tokens. Crypto.news reported that the service had more than 1 million NEAR staked on October 21, 2026. The report said the mechanism covered 43 artificial intelligence models from providers including OpenAI, Anthropic and Google. Its documentation values one computing credit at 1 USD of platform usage, and the report said 500 NEAR can generate 5 USD in monthly credits under a separate agent-hosting formula. Staking is the process of locking tokens to help secure a proof-of-stake network and earn network rewards.

NEAR's MPC network runs 17 mainnet operators

NEAR's network infrastructure also had a dated operating update on October 15, 2026. In a protocol blog post, NEAR Protocol said its multi-party computation network had 17 live mainnet operators. Multi-party computation distributes signing authority across participants rather than placing a private key with one party. The post said House of Stake approval moved MPC operations into a standing program funded by protocol emissions and governed by NEAR token holders. It also reported more than 30 billion USD in cumulative cross-chain volume through NEAR Intents.

Fund flows provided a separate market signal. EconoTimes reported that NEAR spot exchange-traded products recorded 992,689 USD of net inflows on October 23, 2026, with the Bitwise NEAR ETF accounting for the amount. The flow record contrasts with the 2.5389 million USD net outflow reported for NEAR funds on October 20, 2026, by TokenPost.

Investing.com lists 4.49 USD for NEAR

The NEAR Protocol price is 4.49 USD as of October 26, 2026, down 0.01 percent compared with the UTC daily close of October 25, 2026, according to Investing.com. The daily high is 4.61 USD and the daily low for the UTC day is 4.45 USD. Investing.com lists market capitalization at 5.84 billion USD, ranking NEAR 17th, and 24-hour volume at 614.30 million USD. Circulating supply is 1.31 billion NEAR.