NEAR Rallies As Quantum-Resistant Upgrade Nears Mainnet And Intents Volume Tops $33B, Arthur Hayes Stays Bullish

• NEAR Protocol rallied over 11% on Saturday after the network said its accounts were already protected against future quantum computers.
• Trading through NEAR Intents, its cross-chain system, passed $33.29 billion in total volume, according to DefiLlama.
• A draft proposal filed on Wednesday would cut maximum annual token issuance to 1.6% from 2.5% over two years.

NEAR Protocol (NEAR) rallied on Saturday after the protocol said its accounts were already protected against future quantum computers, and trading through its cross-chain system passed $33 billion.

The rally came as NEAR Intents, which lets users move assets between blockchains, reached $33.29 billion in cumulative decentralized exchange (DEX) volume, $4.76 billion of it in the past 30 days, according to DefiLlama. 

Total value locked (TVL), the amount of money deposited in the system, stood at roughly $223 million. Of the $7.81 million in fees collected over the month, $2.15 million was used to buy NEAR on the open market and return it to holders. 

Intents also sat at the centre of the protocol’s quantum work. The team said it was designing the system’s wallet contracts to accept ML-DSA, a newer type of digital signature built to withstand quantum computers.

NEAR's price rose more than 12% over the past 24 hours. On Stocktwits, NEAR was among the top trending tickers. Retail sentiment around NEAR remained in the 'neutral' zone, with chatter at 'low' levels over the past day.

Keeping The Coins Safe

Every crypto wallet is locked by a digital signature. It works because nobody can run the maths backwards from your public address to the private key that opens it. A powerful enough quantum computer could one day do exactly that, and the industry calls that moment “Q-day.”

NEAR announced on Friday that its accounts can already use ML-DSA, and that holders do not need to move their coins anywhere to get the protection. A further change, NEP-655, hides account keys entirely and is running on a test network, with a full launch expected within weeks. The protocol said it was designed with quantum in mind in 2018.

Analysts Stay Bullish As NEAR Eyes New Yearly Highs

Analyst Michaël van de Poppe said that NEAR had “such a beautiful chart,” and that a sweep of the lows was bullish from a day-trading view. He said he expected “a little pullback” before the token moved “back upwards towards new yearly highs.” He added that investors should be more bullish this cycle, arguing that if it resembled 2017, returns would be substantial as adoption arrives.

The case was being made in person this week as well. The RollUp founder Andy posted a video showing that Arthur Hayes reportedly remained bullish on NEAR, along with NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin joking at the TOKEN2049 Singapore conference about the token reaching triple digits.

Read also: Arthur Hayes Says French Debt Crisis Could Send Bitcoin To $250,000 As AI Debt Risks Mount

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