Why are NEAR, Virtuals, and Morpho surging?

NEAR Protocol, Virtuals, and Morpho crypto stood as some of the best performers on Tuesday amid a broader market rebound back above the $2.4 trillion mark.

According to data from CoinGecko, the global crypto market rose 5% to $2.45 trillion before stabilizing around $2.4 trillion at press time. The market recovery was largely fueled by Bitcoin, the bellwether’s rally on Monday with the flagship crypto jumping from intraday lows near $65,000 to over $69,800 in a matter of hours.

Besides this, investor appetite for risk assets also returned after U.S. manufacturing data exceeded market expectations, fueling optimism surrounding Fed rate cuts this year.

The crypto market recovery triggered a short squeeze across major crypto assets. Data from CoinGlass shows nearly $202 million worth of short positions were liquidated in the past 24 hours, out of the total $331 million liquidated from both sides across leveraged markets.

Amidst this volatility, NEAR Protocol, Virtuals, and Morpho emerged as the standout winners. These assets capitalized on the easing market sentiment to post double-digit gains.

NEAR Protocol (NEAR) was the strongest gainer of the day with its 24% rally to a 5-week high of $1.45 on Monday. The surge extended its weekly gains to over 50%.

The AI token’s gains follow AI chip-making giant Nvidia announcing a multiyear strategic partnership with Coherent Corp, a global leader in photonics and networking, to advance its optical interconnect technology.

As part of the agreement, Nvidia would be investing $2 billion in Coherent to support research and development, along with expanding manufacturing capacity.

NVIDIA shares rose by 2.93% shortly after the announcement, sparking a broader rally in AI-focused cryptocurrencies. The partnership also comes just days after the chip giant revealed bullish quarterly earnings, easing fears of a slowdown in AI spending.

As Nvidia is the market bellwether for artificial intelligence, its bullish earnings and stock rally serve as a major impetus for related assets such as NEAR Protocol.

Project-specific catalysts, including the launch of Near FM and Near Intents has also supported the recent rally.

Virtuals Protocol 

Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL) rose over 15% today to $0.79, its highest price since late January this year. The gains followed after it broke out of a consolidation from the $0.60-$0.75 range it had been stuck within over the past week.

Besides sharing the AI market hype surrounding Nvidia news and its stock gains, the agentic AI coin also benefited from strengthening fundamentals supporting it. 

In a recent X post, the Virtuals Protocol team revealed that agent transactions on the network soared by around 128% over the past two weeks, as 3,421 agents competed in Epoch 2 of its AI revenue incentives program. Agent-to-agent revenue reached $2.8 million during the period, with roughly $200,000 distributed to builders.

The team also outlined upgrades for Epoch 3 aimed at tightening reward quality and making it materially harder to manufacture artificial signal, with a stronger focus on genuine demand and sustained utility. 

Morpho 

Morpho (MORPHO) rose 11% on the day to $1.97, extending its weekly gains to around 25%.

Morpho’s gains today can be largely attributed to a surge in network activity following the launch of the OKX Onchain Earn product on the Morpho protocol. The event includes a 65 million KAT (Katana Network) reward pool for users staking USDT on the protocol.

At the same time, there’s also noticeable chatter around Apollo Global’s recent commitment to the protocol, which has provided a strong fundamental backstop for the current price action. Under a newly established four-year cooperation agreement, the $940 billion asset manager is authorized to acquire up to 90 million MORPHO tokens, representing roughly 9% of the total supply.