NEAR Protocol slides below $4.30 as long liquidations drive the sell-off

NEAR Protocol lost the $4.30 mark on Monday. At around 17:10 German time in the afternoon, one NEAR cost roughly $4.02, or about €3.59, a good 7 percent less than 24 hours earlier. Measured from the daily price on October 12, when NEAR still stood at $5.89, the decline adds up to around 32 percent. None of the sources covering the day names a single trigger such as a network failure or an announcement from the project. What is visible is that in the futures market it was mainly bets on rising prices that were unwound.

This article puts the figures in context, shows the levels the price is likely to orient itself by next, and explains what investors in Germany should keep in mind when buying, taxing, trading with leverage and storing NEAR.

NEAR price on November 2: the key figures

The following values come from CoinGecko's daily prices for the past 45 days and the coin's market data on Monday afternoon. cryptoticker.io compiled this analysis itself on November 2, 2026.

Two figures sit side by side that do not seem to fit together at first glance. Over 60 days the price has doubled; over three weeks it has lost almost a third. Anyone who bought in September is still in profit despite Monday. Anyone who bought after October 12 is sitting on losses of between 15 and 32 percent, depending on the day of entry. NEAR is around 80 percent below its all-time high from January 2022.

Why is NEAR falling? Long liquidations and shrinking open interest

The specialist site Coinpaper analysed the day's derivatives data, citing the data service TradRadar (Coinpaper, November 2, 2026). According to that analysis, NEAR positions worth at least $2.83 million were forcibly closed within 24 hours. Around $2.46 million of that came from long positions, bets on rising prices, and only about $370,000 from short positions. That puts the share of longs at around 87 percent.

A liquidation is the forced closure of a leveraged position by the exchange as soon as the collateral posted, the margin, no longer covers the loss. When the price falls, the exchange sells the long positions automatically, and those sales push the price down further. In this way an ordinary pullback can accelerate faster than the spot market alone would explain.

According to Coinpaper, TradRadar puts open interest at about $856 million across seven large exchanges, 6.5 percent less than the previous day. Open interest is the total value of all outstanding futures contracts on a coin. If it falls together with the price, traders are closing positions rather than opening new ones. According to the same source, around 61 percent of tracked accounts on four exchanges were still holding long positions, with a long-to-short ratio of 1.56. Many traders are therefore still betting on a recovery, and precisely these positions would be the next candidates for forced closures if the decline continues.

The news site TokenPost describes the move in similar terms (TokenPost, November 2, 2026). Before the decline, NEAR oscillated between $4.30 and $4.60, and both levels were seen as zones that buyers defend. On Monday the price gave way below $4.30. TokenPost does not name a fundamental reason either.

Support broken: the levels on the NEAR chart at $4.00 and $3.59

A support is a price zone where in the past there was enough buying interest to stop a decline. If it breaks, it often turns into resistance, a hurdle at which a recovery stalls again. For NEAR, the daily prices and the day's sources point to these levels:

• $4.30: former support and, since Monday, the first hurdle on the way up. Only a daily close above it would offset Monday's decline.
• $4.60: the upper edge of the range in which NEAR traded before the decline, according to TokenPost.
• $4.00: the round number at which the price stood in the afternoon. Coinpaper names the zone from $4.05 to $4.10 and then $4 as the next supports.
• $3.59: the daily price on September 20, before the autumn rally really picked up speed. If NEAR fell that far, a large part of the rise since September would be wiped out.

On October 30 NEAR had already slipped to $4.05 once and recovered to $4.43 over the following two days. Whether that repeats also depends on how many of the remaining long positions have their liquidation level below $4. There is no reliable public figure on that.

Since October 23: NEAR loses another 18 percent

Monday is not the first sharp pullback this autumn. On October 23 NEAR fell 7.6 percent, at the time alongside a sell-off in chip stocks on the Nasdaq (our report of October 23). The daily price that day was around $4.88. Since then NEAR has lost another 18 percent.

Two differences from then stand out. First, Monday's decline hit NEAR much harder than the rest of the market: bitcoin was only about 0.5 percent lower in the afternoon, and ether was slightly higher. NEAR therefore fell considerably more than the two largest coins. Second, on October 23 the price was still above the $4.30 to $4.60 range. According to TokenPost, NEAR had recently been oscillating within that range, and it has now broken out of it to the downside.

After a 102 percent rally: NEAR between its autumn high and an old burden

Over 60 days the NEAR price has more than doubled despite Monday. From September 19 to October 12 the daily price rose from $3.76 to $5.89, a gain of a good 56 percent in just over three weeks. At the end of October a staking ETP on NEAR also arrived on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (report of October 29).

After a run like that, many holders are sitting on paper gains, and the market reacts more sensitively to any weakness. The available data give no answer on the direction of the price over the coming weeks. The only established point is that the unwinding of leveraged positions amplified Monday's move. If you think long term, you should also know the distance to the all-time high of $20.44: even after the autumn rally, NEAR trades around 80 percent below the record from January 2022.

NEAR Protocol is a layer-1 blockchain, an independent base blockchain with its own token. The NEAR token pays transaction fees and serves as collateral in staking, through which validators secure the network. A detailed explanation of sharding and staking can be found in our overview of NEAR Protocol.

Buying NEAR in Germany: the exchange's MiCA licence comes first

A price drop attracts buyers betting on a recovery. Before you buy, it pays to look at the provider. Since the EU's crypto regulation MiCA took effect, exchanges and brokers that offer crypto assets to customers in the EU or hold them in custody need authorisation as a crypto-asset service provider. ESMA keeps a public register for this. Which platforms list NEAR and how their fees differ is shown in our overview of the best crypto exchanges.

Especially with coins outside the top 10, three checks are worthwhile. Does the exchange offer NEAR in spot trading, as a genuine purchase, or only as a derivative? How wide is the spread, the difference between the buying and selling price, on a volatile day like this one? And can NEAR be withdrawn to your own wallet? Without withdrawals, you remain tied to the exchange for custody.

Holding period and tax: offsetting NEAR losses in Germany

In Germany, gains from selling cryptocurrencies count as private disposal transactions. If more than twelve months pass between purchase and sale, the gain remains tax-free. Within that period it is taxable, provided that gains from private disposal transactions reach the exemption limit of €1,000 in the year. An exemption limit differs from an allowance: once it is exceeded, the entire gain is taxable.

If you bought NEAR after October 12 and now sell at a loss, you can offset that loss against gains from other private disposal transactions in the same year. Losses can also be carried forward to later years. A complete record of all purchases and sales is essential, because the tax office requires proof of the acquisition price and the holding period. Whether the holding period will remain in place beyond 2026 is politically open; our report on the crypto holding period in 2027 summarises the state of deliberations.

Leverage and liquidation in NEAR perps: long positions go first

A perpetual future, or perp, is a futures contract without an expiry date that traders use to bet on rising or falling prices with leverage. Leverage multiplies gains and losses alike. With ten times leverage, a price drop of just under 10 percent is enough to wipe out the entire margin of a long position. On Monday NEAR fell a good 7 percent within 24 hours; at higher leverage, many positions would already have been closed.

If you trade with leverage, you should know the liquidation level before entering and set a stop that triggers well before it. The difference between isolated margin and cross margin matters here. With isolated margin only the capital of the individual position is at risk; with cross margin it is the entire account balance. Which platforms for decentralised perps offer which safeguards is compared in our overview of the best perp DEXs.

Storing and staking NEAR: hardware wallet, emission and ETP

If you hold NEAR rather than trade it, you can store and stake the coins yourself. When staking, you delegate NEAR to a validator and receive a share of the newly issued tokens in return. The network's emission is 2.5 percent a year, as cryptoticker.io reported on October 19 on the emission rate. The yield for the individual staker depends on what share of all NEAR is staked and what commission the validator charges. Staking through an exchange adds its fee. Providers and terms can be found in our staking comparison.

For larger holdings a hardware wallet is the usual choice, because the private key never leaves the device. If you want to buy on an exchange without holding coins yourself, there has also been the route via an exchange-traded product since the end of October. According to our report of October 29, Virtune's Staked NEAR ETP on Xetra costs 1.49 percent a year. Here the issuer holds the coins, and the product sits in an ordinary securities account.

Whichever route you take, the price decline is the same. Staked NEAR lose value to the same extent as unstaked NEAR, and staking income of a few percent a year does not offset a 7 percent drop in a single day. Direct staking also involves a waiting period: if you want your NEAR back, you first have to release them from delegation.

NEAR below $4.30: only a close above it ends the decline

Monday shows how quickly a coin loses ground after a rally when leveraged positions are unwound. As long as NEAR trades below $4.30, $4.00 and $3.59 remain the levels that will show whether buyers return. Three steps help you assess the situation for your own portfolio:

1. Check the provider: only buy NEAR on an exchange with a MiCA licence. Which platforms hold the licence is shown in our list of regulated crypto exchanges.
2. Limit leverage: keep leveraged positions at a distance from the liquidation level and set a stop. Platforms and their safeguards can be found in our perp DEX overview.
3. Decide on custody: choose whether to store and stake NEAR yourself or hold it via an ETP. Devices for self-custody are compared in our hardware wallet comparison.

(As of November 2, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)