On Friday, NEAR, the native token of the namesake blockchain, surged on anticipation that the protocol may launch its own stablecoin. The coin also benefited from a slew of blockchain venture capital investments.
NEAR was up about 24% in the last 24 hours, trading at $18.92, only a few dollars below its all-time high of $20.2. The token has also gained 46 percent in the last week after raising $350 million in an investment round led by Tiger Global, a digital investor.
Trisolaris, Near’s largest DeFi protocol, just raised $4.5 million as well.
The token’s rise on Friday was fueled by rumors of a new stablecoin to compete with Terra’s UST.
In April, the stablecoin launches?
Near will launch its own stablecoin, USN, on April 20, according to Zoran Kole, head of popular Telegram group Crypto Insiders. The suggested token will function similarly to Terra’s UST as an algorithmic stablecoin.
The token will also have a 20% annual percentage rate, making it the highest DeFi yield on the market. Terra’s Anchor Protocol, for example, now has the highest yield on the market at 19.6 percent. The news has not been confirmed by Near Protocol.
Kole predicts that rising demand in the token will more than treble its market capital in the next months. Near’s focus on developer incentives, he added, is likely to draw additional blockchain development.
Is NEAR the Ethereum 2.0?
Near is a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain designed to take on Ethereum. It enables a number of features that have yet to be implemented in ETH 2.0, such as increased staking payouts and a lower carbon footprint.
However, the proposed switch to a PoS mechanism by ETH has benefitted the coin significantly. The popularity of PoS has spread beyond ETH to other tokens as NEAR, Cardano (ADA), and Solana (SOL).
Despite this, the market capitalization of NEAR is far lower than that of ETH, and it does not appear to be gaining traction. However, when more money pours onto the blockchain, this might alter.
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