Ep. 755 Near Token Rallies as Foundation Reveals Its AI, Privacy & Intents Strategy

NEAR’s strategy is connecting AI agents with programmable assets through NEAR Intents, which has expanded from crypto swaps to support more than 100 assets across over 30 blockchains and has processed about $20 billion in volume. NEAR’s CLO described an intent as a request for an outcome, such as swapping one asset for another, and said the broader goal is to let agents fulfill a wider range of requests, including purchases.

The CLO expects AI agents eventually to handle most, if not all, transfers of programmable assets, including machine-to-machine microtransactions. That vision could shift how people use digital services: instead of navigating conventional websites and apps, users may describe a task to an on-demand agent. The speaker offered comparing contractor quotes, contacting providers, and placing deposits as a possible example, and estimated that AI-centered computing experiences could become predominant within two to three years.

NEAR’s case for this direction rests partly on transaction capacity. The speaker said the network was built for scalable activity and machine-to-machine payments, and could scale to as many as one million transactions per second. They also said NEAR launched quantum resistance on mainnet, which they described as the first such effort by a major protocol to their knowledge. The concern is that quantum computers could put funds at serious risk as machine payments grow.

The CLO expects AI infrastructure demand to remain very large, but argued that competition may constrain premium pricing. Additional model capability can become costly without improving many tasks, while capable open-source models priced at about 20% of top-end models put pressure on providers. Model routers can help match tasks to models based on capability and cost; NEAR has a router in its agent harness. The speaker called AI the most consequential technology of their lifetime but said they did not consider it a financial bubble.

NEAR has reduced inflation from 5% to 2.5%, and the CLO said further cuts are likely. The network expects to support tokenized equities “in fairly short order,” with new asset types potentially broadening the tasks handled through intents. NEAR is also exploring staking for inference. Abbey Vee said staking NEAR earns credits for using LLMs through Iron Claw, a secured agent harness intended to support personalized AI use and make it safer to give agents access to bank accounts or credentials. A new version is expected, but evidence on safety, security, performance, and benchmarks is still forthcoming.

On the Clarity Act, the speaker said perceived odds of passage had fallen from above 80% at the start of the year to roughly 40–45%, before improving as an ethics deal appeared closer. They hope it passes before year-end, but stressed that passage would begin, rather than complete, the regulatory process. Administrative guidance can be reversed by a change of administration, potentially returning the industry to regulation by enforcement. NEAR’s stated aim is to give users more control over assets while limiting securities-law risk and platform control; the CLO cited Binance being forced to exit under MiCA as an example of the consequences of other regulatory regimes.