Illia Polosukhin: NEAR Is Ready For The Quantum Era (Full Thesis)

Illia Polosukhin’s central thesis is that NEAR is built to connect decentralized technology with broader markets while preparing for a future in which quantum computing could challenge existing cryptography. He said the project has been building through bull and bear markets for eight or nine years, including on AI, and sees decentralized systems as important for privacy, private AI, and private money. He also wants NEAR to turn the attention and resources that come with a higher market price into more products and value, rather than treating price as an end in itself.

NEAR Intents is intended to become a “market of markets”: a way to find counterparties across venues, not just within crypto and digital assets. Polosukhin described NEAR’s development from chain abstraction toward connections with assets such as stocks. In his example, a solver could buy a stock on NASDAQ, tokenize it, and deliver it to a user’s wallet. He also sees natural-language intents and subagents coordinating more involved requests, potentially sourcing the materials and services needed for a task as complex as building a skyscraper. These are presented as ambitions for the system, not as a claim that every such task is already supported.

Polosukhin argued that working with other layer ones, blockchains, apps, and protocols is more productive than competing with them, and characterized NEAR as a universal liquidity layer. The interviewer, Robbie, said Qantas can be traded through NEAR Intents and near.com despite not being listed on centralized exchanges, and praised the experience’s ease of use and liquidity. The example illustrates the intended reach of Intents beyond assets typically found on centralized crypto venues, while the broader thesis depends on connecting users, liquidity, and counterparties across different markets.

Quantum readiness is a specific part of NEAR’s design, which Polosukhin said accounted for it in 2018 by making the cryptography updateable. NEAR accounts can rotate or add keys, use multiple keys, and support different cryptographic schemes; he said adding a cryptographic curve takes about 200 lines of code. In July, NEAR launched ML-DSA on mainnet, allowing users to switch account keys to post-quantum cryptography without moving their assets. Polosukhin described ML-DSA as a real-world standard already adopted by Chrome, and said users can make the key update with one button through Meteor Wallet. The practical point is that, as he described it, users can change the cryptographic keys associated with an account rather than transferring the account’s assets to a new one.

A post-quantum NEAR account can hold assets on Ethereum, Bitcoin, and other chains, but that does not mean NEAR can guarantee the security or continued operation of those networks. When asked whether NEAR could protect assets held through it if Ethereum itself had a problem, Polosukhin said NEAR’s infrastructure teams would handle such situations. His answer leaves the response dependent on the circumstances and those teams; it does not establish that NEAR can prevent failures on another chain.

NEAR is also building cryptography, smart-contract, and proactive-analysis systems with SHIELD to detect security events. Polosukhin said NEAR’s privacy feature hides public keys, including for accounts that do not use post-quantum cryptography. Together, these efforts extend the episode’s thesis beyond swapping keys: NEAR is positioning itself to support cross-chain activity while adding tools for privacy and security. The claims describe design choices and ongoing work, with the breadth of the market vision and the handling of cross-chain incidents still dependent on implementation and coordination.