NEAR Top Or Supercycle? SVRN CEO Sal Ternullo INTERVIEW

NEAR’s roughly $6.3 billion valuation is supported largely by investor expectations for NEAR Intents volume, revenue, and token buybacks, while its AI products remain a “free call option,” according to SVRN CEO Sal Ternullo. He expects NEAR could reach the top 10 by the end of the cycle, using about $25 billion as a benchmark and estimating 3–5x upside if its AI products achieve product-market fit and scale. That outcome is conditional: an AI-side fee switch could be a catalyst, but product adoption and token monetization still need to materialize.

Ternullo framed NEAR’s AI opportunity around privacy, confidentiality, and user ownership, rather than a claim that it is the only crypto project pursuing AI. He said decentralized model training is one area of exploration, while NEAR’s products aim to protect user interactions and data. NEAR Intents lets users specify an outcome, such as exchanging USDC for Bitcoin, and leaves solvers to handle execution, including bridging and swapping. Ternullo said Intents has processed more than $32 billion in volume, which he views as evidence of product-market fit and scale; users can access it through apps or wallets without needing to understand its underlying mechanics.

Iron Claw rearchitects the OpenClaw harness to better protect credentials, privacy, and user interactions. Ternullo said it is live and usable, and that its components may become available through a more seamless experience in apps such as near.com over the next several months. Combined with Intents, private inference could keep prompts and outputs confidential even from builders and operators. Ternullo connected this work to NEAR’s longstanding attention to blockchain cybersecurity, dating to 2019–2020, including formal verification using mathematical proofs of application-security properties. He expects AI-related cyber risks to raise demand for stronger security assurance.

Ternullo attributed a recent decline in NEAR Intents TVL to a security event involving a compromised infrastructure component and an estimated $3.8 million loss. He praised the response for clear communication and a timely commitment to make users whole, arguing that incidents can happen in public systems and that the response matters. The episode illustrates a trade-off in the product’s growth: substantial volume can demonstrate utility, but maintaining confidence also depends on security and how problems are handled.

NEAR Intents has seen substantial trading volume in Zcash pairs, but Ternullo expects activity to diversify as asset support expands. Through a partnership with Ando, he said the aim is to make more than 400 tokenized assets, including equities and money-market funds, available through near.com and NEAR Intents. Near.com also offers swaps, earning features, and perpetual futures trading on Hyperliquid through a user-controlled, non-custodial account; a paired spending card is expected soon. Built by DeFi Labs, the app charges a 20-basis-point take rate that goes to the protocol through NEAR-token buybacks. For transactions routed through partners such as Zcash retail wallets or Ledger, fees can be shared between the partner and the buyback system.

Ternullo said liquid-staking options in the NEAR ecosystem include LiNEAR, Meta Pool’s stNEAR, and Raya Finance’s rNEAR. These tokens can earn yield while remaining usable as collateral, including to borrow or access stablecoins for tax planning. His broader investment case depends on NEAR converting product activity into durable value for the token, particularly through Intents revenue and buybacks and potentially through AI-related fees. He cautioned that a shock involving centralized AI frontier labs could hurt crypto AI tokens in the short term, even if it later increases demand for AI sovereignty, privacy, and data confidentiality and ultimately supports NEAR adoption and repricing.