NEAR rises above $5 as Mert Mumtaz joins foundation council and traders watch $6

Price rebound meets nearby resistance

At the time covered by the report, NEAR carried a market capitalization of about $6.82 billion and daily trading volume near $1.24 billion. The move extended a sharp run over the past month, with the token up about 122% in 30 days, even after failing to hold an earlier push toward $6.

Technically, NEAR remained above its 20-day, 50-day, 100-day and 200-day exponential moving averages, placed at $4.903, $4.052, $3.256 and $2.635 respectively. That positioning suggested buyers were still in control across multiple timeframes, although the MACD indicator pointed to fading momentum after the recent surge.

Analysts outline support and breakout conditions

Market watchers said the recent recovery had not yet confirmed a breakout from NEAR’s range. Analyst Rekt Capital highlighted the Oct. 11 high near $5.97 as a key barrier, arguing that the token first needs to reclaim roughly $5.37 and hold support near $4.90 to improve its structure.

If those levels fail, the analyst said NEAR could be pulled back toward a descending trendline or even the established range low around $3.79. Another analyst, Giannis Andreou, also identified $6 as the next major test, with near-term support seen between $4.50 and $4.90.

Andreou’s more constructive scenario depends on a recovery above $6. In that case, he said $8.81 would become the next resistance to watch, and a confirmed breakout above that area with a successful retest could open the way toward $9.80 to $10. He also cautioned that a drop below $4.50 would weaken that setup.

Mumtaz joins the NEAR Foundation Council

The NEAR Foundation said on Oct. 14 that Mert Mumtaz, the chief executive of Solana infrastructure company Helius, had joined its governing council. He is set to serve alongside NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin, Anchorage Digital co-founder Diogo Mónica, former foundation chief operating officer Chris Donovan and NEAR One founder Bowen Wang.

According to the foundation, the council is responsible for oversight and major decisions tied to ecosystem support and product strategy. Mumtaz will continue leading Helius, whose infrastructure is used by projects including Phantom, Jupiter, Coinbase and Bitwise.

In comments released with the announcement, Mumtaz pointed to the need for shared infrastructure linking networks such as Solana, Zcash and Bitcoin. Polosukhin said Mumtaz had been an early supporter of NEAR Intents and that his technical background would help the foundation’s work on private assets and cross-chain markets.

Intents growth follows recent exploit and restart

The foundation also reported that NEAR Intents had processed more than $33 billion in cumulative volume, while confidential total value locked had passed $160 million. Earlier in September, confidential TVL had moved above $70 million, triggering the first snapshot under an incentive program that allocated 333,333 tokens to qualifying users.

NEAR Intents is designed to let users move between supported assets through competing liquidity providers while keeping balances and transaction histories confidential. The latest growth figures came after a security incident earlier this month tied to an interaction involving Omni’s deposit and withdrawal system, which affected about $3.8 million in USDT on BNB Smart Chain.

Polosukhin later said the vulnerability had been fixed and affected users would be compensated. NEAR Intents and near.com resumed operations on Oct. 1, although some affected chains were initially still restricted. He also said the underlying NEAR blockchain, the native token and other applications were not compromised.

What the market is watching next

For now, the immediate focus remains on whether NEAR can move back above $5.50 and then challenge the $5.97 to $6 resistance zone. Analysts cited that area as the key hurdle before stronger upside scenarios can be considered.

On the downside, support around $4.90 and then $4.50 remains central to the near-term picture. Beyond the charts, the next confirmed developments are likely to come from the foundation’s council work and further updates on NEAR Intents adoption, cross-chain services and privacy-focused infrastructure.