Near Protocol price prediction as Ref Finance TVL surges

The Near Protocol price is in an upward trend as the ecosystem growth continued. The token is trading at $17.12, which was about 130% above the lowest level in February. Its market cap has surged to more than $11.35, making it the 17th biggest cryptocurrency in the world.

Near ecosystem growth

Near Protocol is one of the biggest blockchains that seeks to become a leading player in the industry. The network is currently transitioning to become a fully sharded platform. Sharding is a complex process that breaks blocks into smaller pieces known as shards. As a result, the process helps to increase the overall throughput. 

April has been a successful project for the Near Protocol. For one, the developers raised over $350 million from investors. These funds will be used to grow the ecosystem by providing grants to developers and to hire more developers. The new fundraising happened a few months after the developers raised another $150 million.

The Near Protocol price has also risen because of the ongoing ecosystem growth. According to DeFi Llama, the network’s total value locked (TVL) has risen to over $1.4 billion. The TVL of Near itself has risen to $476 million while that of Aurora has jumped to more than $960 million.

On Tuesday, NEAR rose sharply after the TVL in Ref Finance jumped to over $200 million. It has risen by 14% in the past 24 hours and 52% in the past seven days. This makes it the biggest application built in Near Protocol. Other applications in the network have also seen a strong jump of TVL. For example, Burrow rose to over $143 million while Meta Pool rose to more than $143 million.

Near Protocol price prediction

The daily chart shows that the NEAR price has been in a strong bullish trend in the past few months. Along the way, the coin has formed what looks like a cup and handle pattern. This pattern usually sends a signal that the bullish trend will continue. 

It has also moved above the 25-day and 50-day moving averages. The coin has also risen above the ascending trendline shown in brown. Therefore, the Near Protocol price will keep rising as bulls target the all-time high of $20.50.