BTC is down more than 4% tonight, and ETH and BNB are also in the red. I scanned Binance spot markets, and among the major coins with trading volumes above $20 million, NEAR is up around 6%, trading at $3.57—one of the few bucking the trend.
I looked through the news, and two things stood out as concrete developments.
First, it’s reducing issuance. Last year, NEAR cut its inflation cap from 5% to 2.5%. Tokenomist calculated from on-chain data that before the cut, around 170,000 new tokens were issued each day; over the following year, that fell to about 87,000. This month, governance also voted on HSP-029, which would reduce inflation further to 1.6% over 24 months. It passed with 99.96% of the vote, and the Security Council’s veto period ends on November 16. Under the proposal, daily issuance would be around 57,000 tokens once fully implemented.
But don't get too excited just yet: this still depends on a nearcore release and validators upgrading. The reductions won't start until February at the earliest, and staking yields will also drop from 5.27% to around 3.37%.
Second, NEAR Mobile has introduced a quantum-resistant vault using ML-DSA signatures, so you can transfer and stake right from your phone. Honestly, it probably won't have much impact on the token price in the short term, but I believe in the direction.
My take: one day of bucking the trend doesn't mean much. If the broader market takes another hit, it won't escape unscathed. But the fact that “supply is shrinking” is recorded on-chain, which is more reliable than hype.
Do you think reducing inflation can support the token price? Or will lower staking yields end up putting people off?