The crypto market today is stuck in a sideways trade today. BTC is set to hit support at $42K, ETH hovers around $3.3K. In tandem with the market most altcoins trade in losses. However, defying the trend are alts, as they print significant gains.
NEAR Price Action
Since December 18, NEAR has been rising inside an ascending side. On January 14, the stock hit a new all-time high of $20.4. The peak was made quite close to the channel’s resistance line.
Furthermore, both the MACD and the RSI have produced significant negative divergences, which frequently indicate bearish trend reversals.
As a result, it’s likely that NEAR will fall towards the channel’s centre and potentially support lines.
NEAR pricing has entered price discovery after completing a $150 million investment round and experiencing exponential ecosystem expansion.
NEAR’s price rebounded more than 50% to a new record high of $20.36 on Jan. 14 after falling to a low of $13.10 on Jan. 9. Data from Coinpedia and TradingView show that the price of NEAR fell to a low of $13.10 on Jan. 9.
Three elements have led to NEAR’s growing strength: the successful conclusion of a $150 million financing round, the success of the Aurora cross-chain bridge protocol, and a growing ecosystem of projects and developers working on the NEAR network.
In a new round of funding, NEAR has raised $150 million.
The stock has recently climbed in price following the announcement that the team had successfully closed its latest funding round, raising $150 million from a variety of investors including Dragonfly Capital, a16z, Alameda, and Circle Ventures.
NEAR plans to use the cash to promote the adoption of Web3 technologies by providing ecosystem funding, establishing regional hubs for the NEAR community to help raise brand awareness, and providing support for projects based on the protocol.
Across addition to the communities it has developed in Asia, Africa, and Europe, NEAR is seeking to expand its influence to Latin America, Turkey, and India.
Cross-chain bridge Aurora
A second reason for NEAR’s recent rise was the effective implementation of the Aurora protocol. This platform is built on NEAR and allows Ethereum users and decentralised apps to connect to the NEAR protocol.
Aurora employs the Rainbow Bridge to facilitate asset transfer between compatible networks, according to Defi Llama statistics. The Rainbow Bridge has quickly become a commonly utilised protocol for cross-chain transfers, with more than $732 million in total value locked.
As a result of increasing activity brought on by greater acceptance of NEAR applications and token migration from Ethereum, the transaction records count on the NEAR network achieved a new high of 721,061 transactions on January 11.
Expanding Eco-system
A third reason that is boosting the value of the NEAR environment is the growth of its developer community. The number of initiatives developed or connected to the NEAR network has increased in the last two months.
NEAR presently has the third-fastest growing developer community in the whole cryptocurrency ecosystem, thanks in part to the fact that developers on NEAR receive 30% of transaction fees spent on their contract, as seen in the tweet above. In a field where remuneration isn’t always assured, this provides a source of money for developers.
The NEAR ecosystem has thrived and continues to draw new applications as a result of the growing developer community and the availability of a cross-chain bridge.
