Near Returns to the AI Stage: Transformation into a Public Chain Due to 'Payroll Difficulties,' Agent and Privacy Emerge as New Growth Narratives
NEAR Returns to AI Origins: From Payroll Struggles to Blockchain, Now Focusing on AI Agents and Privacy
NEAR Protocol's journey began not with grand blockchain ambitions, but from a practical hurdle: its AI startup founders, including Transformer paper co-author Illia Polosukhin, couldn't efficiently pay international developers in 2017. This led them to pivot and build a high-performance, scalable blockchain.
After years navigating various crypto narratives like sharding and cross-chain interoperability, NEAR is now leveraging its AI roots to re-enter the AI arena. A key driver is its "NEAR Intents" layer, which abstracts complex cross-chain transactions. Users simply state their goal (e.g., swap BTC for ETH), and a solver network finds the optimal route. This system has processed over $20B in cross-chain volume, generating significant fee revenue.
A major growth area is private transactions via "Confidential Intents/Swaps," which hide trade details until settlement to protect against MEV and front-running. Remarkably, private swaps recently accounted for over 40% of NEAR's transaction volume, highlighting strong demand but also potential regulatory scrutiny.
With its AI-founder pedigree, NEAR is positioning itself at the intersection of blockchain, AI agents, and privacy, aiming to become infrastructure for the emerging agent economy while navigating the challenges of its rapid adoption.
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