NEAR Protocol, an AI-native Layer 1 blockchain, recently saw a fresh TD Sequential buy signal appear on its four-hour chart on July 24, 2026. This development followed an 8.34% price decline, indicating a potential exhaustion of selling pressure. The signal emerges amid significant network advancements, including the operational launch of its National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)-approved post-quantum signature scheme and dynamic resharding.
These technical upgrades, designed to enhance security and scalability, underpin the protocol’s long-term vision for an “agent economy.” Traders are now observing how these developments might influence the NEAR token’s trajectory in the coming weeks.
TD Sequential signal and recent price movement
A TD Sequential buy signal was printed on NEAR Protocol’s four-hour chart on July 24, 2026. This indicator, developed by Tom DeMark, aims to identify potential trend exhaustion and price reversals. A bullish TD Setup, like the one observed, suggests a weakening of selling pressure.
The signal followed an 8.34% decline in NEAR’s price, suggesting that selling momentum may be nearing a short-term bottom. The TD Sequential generates numerical values on charts; a completed 9-count in the ‘Setup’ phase or a 13-count in the ‘Countdown’ phase often signals a potential reversal. Traders use these patterns to anticipate shifts in market dynamics.
Foundational upgrades enhance NEAR’s infrastructure
The appearance of the TD Sequential buy signal coincides with substantial technical enhancements to the NEAR Protocol network. On Monday, July 20, 2026, NEAR announced via a post on X that its NIST-approved post-quantum signature scheme had gone live. This makes it one of the first blockchains to implement such a scheme in production.
This critical security upgrade aims to protect the blockchain from potential future threats posed by advanced quantum computing. The announcement of this structural shift for the protocol dates back to February 2026.
Alongside quantum-safe signing, the network also rolled out dynamic resharding, a key feature for scalability. This process divides a blockchain into parallel chains, boosting overall network capacity. The network can now scale itself automatically based on transactional demand, a capability the major v2.13.0 Mainnet Upgrade activated on July 10, 2026.
Dynamic resharding enables the automatic creation of new shards when existing ones reach capacity, eliminating manual coordination delays. NEAR Protocol successfully performed a dynamic resharding process on its mainnet on July 7, 2026, splitting from 9 to 10 shards without human intervention. This confirmed the feature’s operational status.
The protocol has progressively scaled its sharding, growing from one to nine shards since its mainnet launch in April 2020. With dynamic resharding, the network could potentially exceed 70 shards, aiming for transaction throughput comparable to Visa-level speeds.
NEAR’s strategic move toward an agent economy
Beyond immediate trading signals and infrastructure upgrades, NEAR Protocol is strategically preparing for an “agent economy,” also known as “agentic commerce.” This vision involves building an open, integrated stack specifically to support AI agents.
Within this system, NEAR Protocol intends to provide essential components like identity, liquidity, private inference, confidential execution, settlement, governance, and economics. This scaling push, including dynamic resharding, is tied directly to supporting the expansion of NEAR Intents, a cross-chain transactions protocol, and NEAR AI. These efforts anticipate managing large transaction volumes from future AI agents.
Co-founded by Illia Polosukhin and Alexander Skidanov, NEAR’s roots trace back to Near.ai, an artificial intelligence project started in early 2017. Polosukhin, a former engineering manager at Google Research, co-authored the influential 2017 paper ‘Attention Is All You Need.’ This introduced the transformer architecture now fundamental to large language models.
The NEAR Foundation, a non-profit organization based in Zug, Switzerland, supports the protocol’s growth. Its role includes overseeing ecosystem development, grant allocation, and governance, reinforcing NEAR’s commitment to decentralization and its AI-driven future.