NEAR Protocol Surges 15.9% After Decentralized AI Sector Reaches $24.3B
NEAR•Mark Carney warned that U.S. restrictions on Anthropic’s Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models underscore risks of centralized AI, spurring decentralized AI tokens’ market cap to $24.3 billion, up 6% today and 12% this week. NEAR Protocol led with a 15.9% weekly gain as traders seek open compute networks.
1. Carney's Warning
Mark Carney cautioned that U.S. directives forcing Anthropic to disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models for foreign users highlight the dangers of relying on a small group of American AI providers, emphasizing the need to build and diversify global infrastructure.
2. Token Market Reaction
Traders interpreted the Anthropic block as a geopolitical risk signal and shifted capital into decentralized AI tokens, lifting the sector’s combined market capitalization to $24.3 billion, a 6% jump in one day and a 12% increase over the past week.
3. NEAR Protocol Performance
NEAR Protocol outperformed larger AI-linked assets with a 15.9% gain over the week, driven by investor interest in networks that distribute compute and data services across multiple operators via token incentives.
4. Decentralization Challenges
While decentralized AI networks reduce dependence on a single provider, analysts warn that scarce resources—GPUs, data centers and cloud capacity—may still concentrate bottlenecks deeper in the infrastructure stack.
