NEAR AI tops 1 million tokens staked as rewards fund AI inference

NEAR AI has reported more than 1 million NEAR staked with its service, where users can put staking rewards toward AI inference while retaining their underlying tokens. Summary Users retain their staked NEAR while rewards pay for AI inference. Unused inference credits carry forward, and unstaking stops new credits. Computing budgets vary with NEAR’s price, staking yield, and the amount deposited. Agent hosting follows a separate formula, with 500 NEAR generating $5 in monthly credits. In an Oct. 21 X post, NEAR AI said that the amount staked had passed 1 million tokens, with NEAR Protocol repeating the figure minutes later and describing the deposits as staking for inference. “Stake yours to pay for your AI. The NEAR stays yours,” NEAR AI wrote. The protocol introduced the payment option on July 30, as crypto.news previously reported when NEAR launched staking-based AI payments. At launch, NEAR said the mechanism covered 43 models from providers including OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, alongside confidential inference and hosted agents. NEAR AI uses staking rewards to fund inference NEAR AI’s inference documentation says the service converts staking yield into computing credits, leav...