Asian equities and US stock futures are climbing while bitcoin extended its steady upward path during the Asian trading session on Monday. The digital asset changed hands at just above $81,000 in early Asia trading, having gained less than 1% over the past 24 hours. The move builds on a continuous rally that started last Thursday, when the US Securities and Exchange Commission cleared the way for on-chain trading of tokenized US stocks, according to market data.

Among major crypto tokens, NEAR distinguished itself with a sharp advance of roughly 23% to just over $4. This surge is tied to NEAR Intents, a token-swap service built on the NEAR blockchain that enables a single wallet to convert one token directly into another across different blockchains, eliminating the need for users to manually transfer assets from one chain to another beforehand. Leading consumer wallets including ZODL and Vizor have adopted the service to provide ZEC (Zcash) conversion capabilities. Over the past week, the daily transaction volume of ZEC processed through NEAR Intents has at times grown to six times its previous level. As a result, NEAR has established itself as a key routing layer for ZEC, one of the most actively traded tokens in the market, and the surge in related trading flows has lifted NEAR's own token price.

Elsewhere in the crypto space, ZEC was up 3% at just above $1,500, while BNB advanced 2% to nearly $777. Ethereum (ETH) and HYPE each added roughly 2%, with XRP, DOGE, SOL, and TRX all posting gains of 1% or less. Equity markets set the tone across the Asian session, with the MSCI Asia-Pacific index rising nearly 1%, led by South Korea. S&P 500 futures were up less than 1%, while Nasdaq 100 futures saw a slightly larger climb. Meanwhile, Brent crude slipped 2% to just above $101 per barrel, marking a fourth consecutive day of declines. The pullback in oil prices eased inflation concerns and pushed US Treasury futures higher.

Jeff Mei, chief operating officer at crypto exchange BTSE, attributed the weekend rise in bitcoin to the SEC's green light for tokenized US stock trading on-chain, followed by a short squeeze. He noted that the economic calendar this week carries limited events, primarily speeches from several Federal Reserve officials. Referring to the Fed's late-October policy meeting, Mei said: "I expect market volatility to increase further in the final weeks leading up to that meeting." With more than a month remaining before the Fed gathers in late October, remarks from multiple central bank officials and an inflation report could all reshape market positioning in the interim.