NEAR Protocol experienced a sharp decline on October 8, dropping nearly 16% from its opening price of $5.34 to around $4.49. The intraday decline reached as low as $4.30, representing a nearly 20% dip from the session open.
The pullback comes a day after Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan released a market report on October 7 highlighting NEAR's performance. Hougan noted that NEAR rose 198% in the third quarter, outpacing Bitcoin's 43% gain and Ethereum's 71% gain over the same period.
Hougan described NEAR as one of the few small-cap projects he is comfortable recommending, citing its established business operations. He identified NEAR Intents as the token's core business.
NEAR Intents recorded $4.80 billion in monthly trading volume in September, marking a record high. This represents a significant increase from under $500 million a year earlier, though it falls short of the previous peak of $3.65 billion set in November of the prior year.
Despite the recent decline, NEAR remains approximately 3x higher than its August low near $1.60. Technical indicators have signaled a reversal, with the RSI dropping to 52.7 after trading above 80 days earlier, and the MACD turning bearish in early October with increasingly longer red bars.
