Bitwise Maps Out Three Paths for NEAR Protocol: AI Agent Economy Could Push Token to $155 by 2030

One asset manager sees a future in which NEAR Protocol’s native token isn’t just another layer-1 investment but a critical piece of infrastructure for a new digital workforce. In a recent research framework, Bitwise Asset Management outlined three distinct scenarios for NEAR, all looking ahead to 2030. The results are strikingly wide-ranging: a bearish path that could leave the token at $1.63, a base case that points to $155.80, and a bullish outcome that would send NEAR to $562.80. That final number represents a gain of more than 100 times from today’s valuation, while the middle scenario still implies a roughly 30-fold increase. The report adds fuel to an increasingly crowded conversation about how blockchain networks might benefit from the rapid rise of autonomous AI agents — software systems that can make decisions, execute tasks, and, crucially, make payments without direct human supervision.

Bitwise, a well-known crypto asset manager, has spent years building index products around digital assets, and its latest modeling work is designed to measure a very specific opportunity for NEAR Protocol. Rather than relying on broad market sentiment or historical momentum, the report attempts to quantify how much economic activity could flow through the network if NEAR becomes a preferred settlement layer for machine-to-machine transactions. That framing sets the firm’s analysis apart from conventional price forecasts. The base scenario, for example, is not described as a definitive price prediction or even the most likely outcome. Instead, it is a mathematically grounded possibility derived from assumptions about the growth of AI agents, their transaction habits, and NEAR’s ability to capture a meaningful share of that traffic. In that sense, the report is less a crystal ball and more a structured thought experiment built around one of the most intriguing themes in the crypto industry: the convergence of artificial intelligence and decentralized finance.

The AI Agent Assumption: Billions of Digital Workers

At the heart of Bitwise’s research is a bold assumption about the future scale of AI agents. The firm projects that, by 2030, there will be roughly 16.4 billion AI agents operating around the world. To put that number in perspective, the global human population is currently just over eight billion. The report envisions a world in which autonomous software agents are more numerous than people, each one running errands, negotiating with other software, and transacting with services in a digital economy. From there, Bitwise applies a market-share assumption. The firm estimates that approximately 2 percent of these AI agents will use the NEAR Protocol ecosystem for at least some of their operations. That might not sound like an aggressive figure, but converted into absolute terms, it works out to about 328 million AI agents relying on NEAR in some capacity. In a single sentence, the model shifts from a fascinating macroeconomic vision to a concrete user base that many established blockchain networks would be happy to capture in the current environment.

The choice of NEAR as the focal point is not accidental. NEAR Protocol has long positioned itself as a scalable, developer-friendly layer-1 blockchain, with its sharded architecture designed to process high volumes of transactions more efficiently than older networks. The project has also made deliberate moves into the AI space, courting developers who want to build decentralized applications that interact with machine-learning models and autonomous workflows. Bitwise’s scenario leans directly into that positioning. If AI agents become the dominant users of blockchain rails, the networks that can handle billions of microtransactions while keeping fees low and speed high will be best positioned to win. In the report’s base case, NEAR becomes more than just another smart-contract platform; it becomes a large transaction and payment network built for the machine economy.

From Millions of Agents to Trillions of Dollars in Motion

Once the number of AI agents is established, the model shifts to activity levels. Bitwise assumes that each AI agent will perform an average of 1,000 operations per year. These operations could include everything from paying for API access and settling invoices to purchasing compute power and transferring data across protocols. At first glance, 1,000 operations per year per agent seems modest — just under three operations per day. But when multiplied across 328 million agents, the figure becomes enormous. The model implies roughly 328 billion operations per year flowing through the NEAR ecosystem. Each operation, in Bitwise’s framework, carries an average transaction value of approximately $5. That brings the potential annual transaction volume to well over a trillion dollars. Even if the actual value per transaction is lower, the scale of activity is enough to strain any network that is not built for extreme throughput.

The key insight behind the model is that AI agents do not work on human schedules and they do not follow human transaction patterns. They can operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and they can initiate payments in milliseconds. This creates a demand profile that is very different from the typical retail crypto user. Traditional payment networks, and even many blockchain systems, are not designed to handle billions of low-value, high-frequency automated transactions. NEAR’s architecture, with its focus on scalability and usability, is intended to handle this kind of load. Bitwise’s report essentially argues that if the AI economy matures the way many technologists expect, NEAR has a genuine opportunity to become one of the primary financial highways for autonomous systems. The shift from human-driven transactions to agent-driven commerce could rewrite the value proposition of the entire token.

Why the Base Case Points to $155.80

The arithmetic connecting these assumptions to a specific token price is rooted in network economics. In Bitwise’s model, the value of NEAR is tied to its role in facilitating AI agent transactions. As hundreds of billions of operations flow through the network each year, demand for the token is expected to rise, because transactions on the network require fees paid in NEAR, and participants in the ecosystem must hold or use the token to interact with services. The report drives this activity into a valuation framework that produces a base-case price of $155.80 in 2030. That is a substantial number for a token that has spent much of its recent history trading at a much lower valuation. It also highlights just how quickly the market could reprice a blockchain network if the AI narrative evolves from a theoretical possibility into an operational reality.

There is, however, an important layer of nuance that should not be ignored. The $155.80 figure is not a guarantee. It is the result of a series of assumptions, each of which carries its own level of uncertainty. If the number of AI agents grows more slowly than projected, or if NEAR captures a smaller share of the market, the price would settle somewhere closer to the bearish outcome. If adoption accelerates beyond the report’s expectations, the bullish figure of $562.80 becomes the more relevant benchmark. The report is careful to avoid presenting the base case as a consensus estimate. It is a scenario built on a specific, clearly articulated vision of the future. That kind of transparency is rare in the crypto research space, where many price forecasts are little more than speculative marketing dressed up as analysis.

Risks, Rivalries, and the Road Beyond the Model

Bitwise’s analysis also invites a broader conversation about the risks embedded in any long-term crypto forecast. The AI agent economy itself is still in its infancy. While tools like ChatGPT, autonomous trading systems, and agentic frameworks have attracted billions of dollars in investment, the infrastructure for machine-to-machine payments remains nascent. It is entirely possible that a different blockchain, or a non-blockchain payment network, becomes the dominant settlement layer for AI agents. Ethereum, Solana, and other high-performance networks are also competing for this role, and NEAR is by no means guaranteed to win. Regulatory uncertainty adds another layer of unpredictability. Governments around the world are still wrestling with how to treat stablecoins, tokenized payments, and cross-border crypto transactions. A shift in regulatory policy could materially affect any of the three scenarios.

The report closes with a familiar disclaimer: this is not investment advice. That phrase is common across the crypto industry, but in this context it also serves as a reminder that forecasts like these should be viewed as analytical tools rather than instructions. The next seven years will likely transform many of the assumptions underpinning the crypto market. By 2030, the relationship between artificial intelligence and blockchain could look entirely different from anything imagined today. For now, the Bitwise model offers a compelling, well-structured attempt to understand what NEAR Protocol might become if the machine economy lives up to its promise. Whether the token lands at $1.63, $155.80, or $562.80 will depend on billions of autonomous decisions by agents that, in many cases, do not exist yet. That is both the challenge and the opportunity of forecasting the AI-crypto era. Investors are left to weigh the possibilities, watch how the ecosystem evolves, and decide for themselves which scenario is most realistic for the road ahead.