Bankless

NEAR’s AI Money Thesis: Intents, Privacy, and Tokenomics | Sal Ternullo

49 min

This episode explores NEAR Protocol's transformation into an AI-focused blockchain, emphasizing its 'AI Money' thesis where the NEAR token facilitates agent-to-agent transactions. Sal Ternullo, CEO of SVRN, argues NEAR's vertical integration with products like NEAR Intents (which handle $20B in volume) and confidential transactions creates unique value accrual, positioning it as a leader in the agentic commerce era. The discussion covers how NEAR's tech stack—including chain signatures and private AI inference—is powering major projects like Venice AI, Zcash, and Infinex, while its tokenomics now feature a 2.5% inflation rate and fee burns from intents.

Summarized by Podsumo

🎙️ Ask about this episode

✨ Key Takeaways

1

NEAR Intents has processed over $20 billion in volume and generated $30+ million in fees, with burns creating deflationary pressure on the NEAR token—contrary to typical scaling fears.
2

NEAR's strategy mirrors successful patterns (like Hyperliquid) of building first-party apps (NEAR Intents, NEAR AI, Iron Claw) that accrue value directly to the protocol token, unlike Ethereum's third-party model.
3

The 'AI Money' thesis positions NEAR as the settlement layer for billions of autonomous agents, with projects like Venice AI and Zashi already using its infrastructure for private, cross-chain swaps.
4

NEAR's philosophy of privacy and sovereignty is gaining traction amid growing enterprise demand for HIPAA-compliant AI and secure data handling, as seen with confidential transactions on near.com.
5

The token is seen as undervalued by 2-4x based on current fundamentals, but AI-driven agent adoption could provide a 20-50x multiplier if NEAR captures significant market share in agentic commerce.

💬 Notable Quotes

"The NEAR token is really like AI money. It's how do agents in a self-sovereign user-controlled fashion actually transact on our behalf in the real economy? — Sal Ternullo"
"I look at NEAR as the token as AI money. These components around NEAR Intents, NEAR AI, and Iron Claw are the embodiment of how you build private user-owned AI. — Sal Ternullo"
"When you contemplate the scale of a billion or billions of agents interacting and this system being the most robust to serve that market, that's where you start to get the force multiplier. — Sal Ternullo"