Veteran Analyst Predicts NEAR Protocol to Skyrocket, Bullish on Solana Ecosystem

• A veteran analyst has predicted that NEAR Protocol will skyrocket past $10.50, surging by 60% from its current price of $6.58.
• The analyst is also bullish on the Solana ecosystem, naming oracle protocol Pyth Network, DEX aggregator Jupiter, and DeFi platform Jito as the best bets.

As the bull market rallies on, one veteran trader and analyst has his sights set on an Ethereum rival that he says will surge 60% over the next two weeks.

Known to his 253,000 followers on X as Bluntz, the analyst believes that NEAR, the native token for the chain abstracting stack network Near Protocol, will hit a new two-year high at over $10 within the next two weeks. As illustrated on the graph below, he notes that NEAR has been on an uptrend and is long due to record a sharp spike over the coming weeks.

At press time, NEAR trades at $6.63, dipping 3.72% in the past day, where it set an intra-day high above $7. With $7 billion in market cap, it ranks 20th, just below Litecoin. Since the month started, it has dipped from a high of $7.3402 to a weekly low of $6.1 before gradually recovering. Despite recent hiccups, NEAR has gained over 52% in the past month to shoot from $4.44 at the end of March.

While the analyst predicts a sharp spike, NEAR’s prospects in the short term depend on its ability to break past a trendline it has followed since hitting a new two-year high just below $9 in mid-March. As the graph below shows, this trendline has proven to be formidable resistance, with the token’s price hikes being progressively lower with each wave. If NEAR is to set a new high at $10.50, it has to break past this resistance.

Beyond the price, the NEAR Foundation has continued to develop the protocol, with its latest offering being chain signatures. The feature allows users to transact on any network from a single account, with founder Illia Polosukhin describing it as the latest step forward in the network’s goal of simplifying access to blockchain.

“Chain Signatures is the next step in that journey, making it significantly easier to transact on any blockchain while also defragmenting liquidity across the ecosystem,” he stated.

As Crypto News Flash reported, Illia’s involvement with Nvidia has also sparked rumors that a partnership could be on the cards with the American chip manufacturer that has become the hottest stock in the AI revolution.

Solana Ecosystem Tokens Rally: JTO, JUP and PYTH Set for Rallies

Aside from NEAR, the analyst is also excited about tokens from the Solana ecosystem. Solana has been the market star over the past year, with its ecosystem thriving amid launches of some of the most successful tokens of the bull market. While meme coins like WIF and Bonk have grabbed the headlines, the analyst is focused on tokens with utility building on Solana.

He singled out Pyth Network (PYTH), an oracle network set to compete with Chainlink, as one of the tokens to stock up on. PYTH has shed close to 10% to trade at $0.786 in the past day. However, since the year started, it has gained 143%.

The analyst also pointed to two Solana DeFi tokens—Jito’s JTO and Jupiter’s JUP—as great buys.