Profit-Taking Caps NEAR Protocol’s 10% Rally

NEAR, a token tied to the AI sector, climbed as high as $2.36 on Thursday, buoyed by strong buying interest and enthusiasm around Bitwise’s plans to launch a NEAR exchange-traded product (ETP) in Germany. However, traders seized the chance to secure profits, triggering a pullback that set support around the $2.26 Fibonacci level.

“The NEAR Staking ETP on Xetra offers institutions a regulated, exchange-traded way to access NEAR and its user-driven AI ecosystem,” Illia Polosukhin told CoinDesk. “It enables investors to earn staking yields without handling private keys or maintaining nodes, all while keeping price transparency.”

Despite the retracement, NEAR appears to be consolidating, leaving the door open for a renewed move higher.

Technical Picture

NEAR found strong buying support at $2.26, accompanied by robust trading volumes during the period from 2 July at 16:00 to 3 July at 15:00.
Early on 3 July, NEAR broke above the $2.30 resistance level, reaching a session peak of $2.36 amid notable volume surges.
The 23.6% Fibonacci retracement zone has acted as a stabilizing force as traders locked in profits, indicating that the broader uptrend is still intact.
A pronounced sell-off occurred between 15:04 and 15:07 on 3 July, with over 310,000 tokens changing hands during that brief window.
A new support area has formed between $2.26 and $2.27, with the token closing the session at $2.26, signaling short-term selling pressure remains.

CD20 Index Gains 2% Before Retracing Late Session

Over the same 24-hour span from 2 July at 16:00 to 3 July at 15:00, the CoinDesk 20 Index (CD20) displayed significant volatility, swinging by $37.27, or 2.11%. The index hit its intraday peak of $1,811.11 during the 14:00 hour on 3 July, but quickly dropped back to $1,791.50 by the close.

Earlier in the day, the CD20 demonstrated solid upward momentum, rising by more than $21 (1.18%) from its overnight low of $1,778.85. Heavy buying activity was observed between 09:00 and 13:00, hinting at institutional interest despite the profit-taking that hit in the final hour of trading.