Near Protocol (NEAR) was among the top performers in the cryptocurrency market on Tuesday, rising 5% to trade at $5.29 at press time, according to CoinMarketCap data. The gain came as the network notched several ecosystem developments, even as DFINITY founder Dominic Williams questioned the technology behind its privacy features.
Ecosystem developments drive gains
NEAR's advance followed a series of announcements. The network reported that over 1 million NEAR tokens had been staked through its decentralized AI framework, NEAR AI. In this staking economy, users and developers stake NEAR tokens to pay for private AI compute and secure agent slots.
Separately, Bitwise noted in a recent report that 596 million NEAR tokens are currently staked, equal to 46% of the total supply. The community has maintained this staking ratio over the last three quarters despite a near 50% reduction in staking yield to 4.87%.
Near also recently launched Near Business, a confidential multi-signature treasury for crypto-utilizing businesses. The product can be used to make payments, swaps, and capital allocations across more than 35 chains. Additionally, Near Intents transactional volume has reached $35.60 billion, representing a 14.6x year-over-year increase.
DFINITY founder raises doubts
In a recent post, DFINITY founder Dominic Williams said a review by a PhD graduate had made him skeptical of Near's Confidential Intents architecture. He said the privacy feature ran on a separate instance of the protocol called FAR, was operated by unknown centralized nodes, and was not open source. He concluded by implying the network could be one of those overpromised Web3 projects.
Some supporters agreed with his questioning, with a few noting they had similar doubts about Near, which one critic described as "snake oil." Most responses, however, came from critics who compared Internet Computer's development and depressed ICP price to the better-performing NEAR. At press time, DFINITY's ICP was trading at $2.90, more than 99% below its launch price.
Others dismissed Williams' comments as a marketing strategy that relies on attacking the competition.
