Bittensor and NEAR Protocol Slide as AI Coin Trade Falters

The two-week slide in Bittensor and NEAR Protocol stands out against Bitcoin's much smaller 3.7% decline, and the gap traces to how closely the two coins track AI expectations. It also points to earlier pressure: on October 8, rising oil prices, rising interest rates, concerns about the future of cryptography and tech-stock anxiety converged, and TAO fell from about $291 to $269 while NEAR dropped from around $5.33 to $4.46. NEAR had more to protect after soaring 204.5% in 2026 and 138.7% over the last 60 days, and even the start of a spot NEAR ETF on September 29 left it down 7% over the last 30 days. On the supply side, Bittensor's subnets pay miners and validators in new TAO tokens through emissions, which can add to supply when buyer interest wanes, even after the December 2025 halving cut daily issuance in half. Trading volume on October 25 was the lowest since the selloff began on October 7, which suggests sellers may be tiring, though the rebounds have come on light volume.