With the altcoin market still under pressure, financial analyst Michael van de Poppe mentioned possible opportunities in this space.
The most notable projects are: Near Protocol, Native Token Near (NEAR) A network aimed at developing decentralized applications (dApps) As of March 2, 2026, it is trading around $1.31, 93.4% below the all-time high (ATH) of $20.40 reached in January 2024.
Despite the fall from this high, NEAR is the best weekly performing token among the top 100 digital assets by market capitalization.
In this regard, Van de Poppe explained: On March 1, he invested $10,000 in NEAR at a price of $1.12 per unit.which is equivalent to approximately 8,928 tokens. As he explained, this position became the most relevant in the portfolio that he publicly oversees.
The analyst noted that he has been “very vocal” about the project, saying, “I tweet a lot about NEAR,” justifying why he is closely monitoring NEAR’s performance.
The acquisition is part of a strategy known as DCA (dollar cost averaging method or dollar cost averaging), It consists of buying at different times to reduce the impact of volatility on the average entry price.as explained in Criptopedia, the education section of CriptoNoticias.
Theme: AI, privacy, automation
He further argued that interest in NEAR is related to the adoption of tools based on artificial intelligence (AI) and the debate over privacy in data use.
The central idea he explained is that as more tasks are delegated to automated systems, The amount of sensitive information circulating in digital services is increasing, and so is the need to store it.
In that sense, he said, “I use AI a lot…but it’s not private,” referring to the fact that many current tools process user information on third-party platforms.
From their perspective, this is especially important when automation extends to financial decisions and operations. Relevant data may include your identity, balance sheet, trading history, or investment criteria.
The idea is that in the future, automated agents could operate without direct human intervention, he said. “At some point, AI agents will use stablecoins and other financial instruments to move funds. We don’t do that anymore,” he said.
From a practical point of view, Refers to a system that automatically performs transfers, exchanges, or hedging according to predefined rules.in the same way as today’s trading bots and financial management tools, but with more autonomy.
He said that once such executions are automated, privacy becomes a prerequisite. “You’re going to want it to be private and you’re going to want it to be done right.”
Mention of “near intent” and Aurora Labs
Mr. Van de Poppe also discussed the development of infrastructure within the NEAR ecosystem and the so-called “close intentions”. This concept refers to mechanisms designed to simplify the performance of operations across different digital environments.
Practically speaking,intentionconsists of an intention declared by the user (e.g., to exchange or transfer value) and a system that takes the necessary steps to realize it.
The expert who explained that this related to him said, “I really like NEAR.” And he reiterated that the combination of automation and AI could be advantageous for this type of solution.
For Van de Poppe, NEAR is underrated, but Price developments depend on a wider range of variables, including macroeconomic and geopolitical conditions.. More stable scenarios typically reinvigorate risk appetite and tend to favor cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin (BTC) and, by extension, NEAR.