Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan Sees NEAR at $155.85 by 2030 on AI Agent Demand

A 40x Base Case Built on AI Agents

A 40x call on NEAR Protocol (NEAR) rests on an argument about who settles payments in an agent economy, and Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan has now made that argument in full. His base case puts the NEAR price at $155.85 by 2030, roughly 40 times the token’s current value, with a maximum scenario of $562.81, more than 100x, and a worst case of $1.63. The premise is autonomous AI agents that handle payments, trading, service bookings and digital asset management without human intervention. That work needs infrastructure to move money between applications, the role cross-chain bridges and intent-based systems serve, and Hougan’s claim is that NEAR Intents is positioned to provide it. Users and applications route transactions across different blockchains through NEAR Intents without absorbing the underlying complexity, and the network’s chain abstraction technology lets dApps work with assets on multiple networks, supporting the broader vision of an interconnected agent economy. The arithmetic behind the $155.85 figure assumes 328 million AI agents each executing 1,000 transactions a year at an average cost of $5, with a 0.3% fee applied and a 50x valuation multiple on top. Hougan treats existing usage as evidence the concept is proven rather than theoretical: NEAR Protocol (NEAR) Intents has processed close to $30 billion in cross-chain transactions to date. He also framed the ceiling of the call from below, arguing that even a 40x to 50x surge would still leave NEAR worth less than Ethereum is today, a valuation that itself sits at the depths of the bear market. Asked whether it is absurd to think the fundamental layer where agentic finance takes place could be worth less at maturity than Ethereum was at that trough, his written answer was “no, it is not absurd.” The full case runs through his Blockchain for AI memo.

The Spot NEAR ETF Riding the Same Thesis

Bitwise has a regulated product riding on the same view. At the end of September the firm launched a spot NEAR ETF on NYSE Arca under the ticker NRR, giving United States investors a way to hold the layer-1 token through a regulated vehicle and to stake it. The fund charges 0.75% per year. Staking of the underlying assets is handled by Bitwise’s internal staking team, and on-chain data collected on September 25 put the estimated annual staking yield at 5.3%, a figure that fluctuates and cannot be guaranteed. Rewards are reflected directly in the fund’s net asset value. The prospectus filed with the SEC states that the trust keeps 67% of gross staking earnings, with the remaining 33% covering staking agents, custodians and Bitwise’s own compensation. The wrapper also gives investors exposure without buying and managing the token in a crypto wallet, though returns remain exposed to price swings, to changes in staking rewards and to the annual management fee. At launch, Hougan connected the product to the same agentic argument: as AI agents take on booking and payments, demand will grow for independent and secure settlement systems. Speaking alongside him on The Rollup podcast, Sovereign CEO Sal Ternullo added that NEAR Protocol (NEAR) appears to be reaching a point where user activity tracks more closely with the token’s value. Hougan has also stressed that NEAR does not need to win the AI race for the call to hold. The NEAR Protocol network already runs an active blockchain business, transaction volume acts as a backstop for the thesis, and the AI ambitions are a side bet rather than a necessity. He counts NEAR among smaller-cap tokens that combine real-world utility today with room to run, and flows have followed the launch: the fund logged a $3.98M net inflow for Monday, October 12.

The load-bearing assumption in the base case is the agent count. The $155.85 figure needs 328 million agents each settling 1,000 transactions a year at $5, and the roughly $30 billion NEAR Intents has processed proves the rails exist, not that machines will crowd onto them at that scale. Framed differently, the thesis requires a sustained bull market in machine-to-machine payments before it requires anything of the token itself. In the near term our live monitoring shows the token down 10.6% over the past 24 hours; earlier Bitwise research has already sent NEAR toward $5.53 resistance, and NEAR technical analysis matters more than a 2030 horizon for anyone sizing an entry today. The worst case of $1.63 is the branch the call itself concedes: if agentic finance fails or captures only a small share, transaction volume must carry the thesis alone.