The NEAR token (CRYPTO: $NEAR) is up 30% on May 22 following an endorsement from cryptocurrency influencer Arthur Hayes.
NEAR was trading at $2.23 U.S. in afternoon trading and was up about 30% on the day after
Arthur Hayes named NEAR one of the “holy trinity” of altcoins.
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Arthur Hayes is an American entrepreneur and former CEO of crypto derivatives exchange BitMEX. He remains a prominent voice within the cryptocurrency industry.
Analysts and crypto commentators say Hayes endorsement is one of several factors driving NEAR’s price higher.
On social media, Vadim Zacodil, a former contributor to the NEAR protocol, said the altcoin is also rising because Bitwise recently added NEAR to its crypto exchange-traded product (ETP).
Zacodil also points to growing institutional demand and NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin’s artificial intelligence (A.I.) background as helping to spotlight the token and push its price up.
Next month, NEAR is slated to roll out a major upgrade designed to expand its network capacity and improve scalability through resharding technology.
NEAR has gained 128% this year as its momentum continues.