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Two midsize cryptocurrencies, Ethena (CRYPTO: ENA) and NEAR Protocol (CRYPTO: NEAR), have catalysts in the works that could sharply boost their prices over the next 12 months, boosting the tear both have been on so far this year. Neither has been perturbed by ongoing global uncertainty or economic concerns; NEAR is up 240% in 2026, while Ethena is up 20% as I write this.
What's more, these two coins are already gaining traction with institutional investors, which usually bodes well for the future. Let's see why they're likely to remain unstoppable through the rest of this year and beyond.
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Ethena issues USDe (CRYPTO: USDE), a synthetic dollar asset that's backed in part by hedged cryptoassets rather than bank deposits or Treasuries.
While it looks a lot like a stablecoin on the surface, USDe actually belongs in an adjacent category -- synthetic dollars -- because of the different mix of assets used to peg the value of one USDe to $1. Its reserves earn funding payments, lending income, and some yield from tokenized government debt.
Over the 30 days ending Oct. 6, USDe's reserves earned $18.3 million, per DefiLlama. Furthermore, in a vote that closed Sept. 2, Ethena's holders approved a proposal to route its revenue into buybacks of the coin on the open market once the circulating USDe supply reaches $7.5 billion. USDe's supply was $4.9 billion as of Oct. 5, so investors could capture some of the value from the token's utilization fairly soon.
On top of that, Standard Chartered's Geoff Kendrick said on Sept. 30 that he expected the coin to hit $0.42 by the end of 2026, climbing 75% in the process, and then reach $2 by the end of 2028; its price is $0.24 today. So if you're looking for an asset that's an interesting twist on the stablecoin issuer play, Ethena could be up your alley.
NEAR skyrocketed from $1.88 to $5.14 last month, thanks to the success of its flagship product, NEAR Intents.
Intents enable human users and artificial intelligence (AI) agents to swap their assets across blockchains at competitive prices, thereby massively reducing friction for users while also saving them money directly. Given that it can sometimes take multiple transactions, costing upward of 1% of the transaction's value, to move crypto from the biggest networks to smaller and emerging ones, Intents could prove to be a major streamlining of a very common pain point for crypto developers and investors.
Intents earned $1.9 million in protocol revenue in the 30 days ending Oct. 6, per DefiLlama. Since Feb. 23, Intents revenue has funded NEAR buybacks. Only around $5.4 million in buybacks have happened so far, but that'll increase over time if it continues gaining traction.
Separately, institutional investors are already taking notice and planning for NEAR's future success.
Bitwise's NEAR exchange-traded fund (ETF) began trading on Sept. 29, and held $53.4 million of NEAR by Oct. 6. And a Bitwise report from Sept. 28 forecasts a 2030 base case of $155 per NEAR.
That estimate might prove to be too bullish, but the message is clear: At least one institutional investor has high hopes for NEAR, and it's hard to say that's a bad thing.
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Alex Carchidi has positions in NEAR Protocol. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends NEAR Protocol. The Motley Fool recommends Ethena and Standard Chartered Plc. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
2 Unstoppable Cryptocurrencies Poised for Massive Gains This Year was originally published by The Motley Fool
