NEAR's AI Vindication

Years before AI became the dominant narrative in tech, NEAR was already positioning itself as "the AI blockchain." Camila Russo sits down with NEAR co-founder Ilya Polosukhin — co-author of the seminal "Attention Is All You Need" paper — to discuss whether this moment feels like vindication, and where NEAR fits into the AI landscape now that everyone else has caught up. Topics covered: Why decentralized AI and blockchain need each other, and how NEAR uses secure enclaves to deliver verifiable, low-cost inference The case for decentralized AI as "freedom technology," and Ilya's take on Anthropic's Claude Fable 5 export-control shutdown and AI censorship more broadly NEAR's standout token performance this year, reduced inflation, and the new fee-generating model behind NEAR Intents How NEAR Intents work as a cross-chain matching layer, and the rise of confidential balances and private transactions Why Ilya believes blockchains will increasingly be used by AI agents rather than humans — and what that means for NEAR's roadmap NEAR's evolving agent marketplace and vision for AI-driven commerce beyond simple stablecoin payments Guest: Ilya Polosukhin, Co-founder of NEAR Protocol Host: Camila Russo, The Defiant