NEAR Co-Founder Maps 11 Build Directions as AI Agents Top the List
TREE NEWS reports: NEAR Protocol co-founder Illia Polosukhin has outlined eleven development directions he believes are the most promising for builders on the network, arguing that the hard part of shipping on NEAR is no longer technical. A wave of both new and returning developers is coming back to the ecosystem, the barrier to entry keeps falling, and the decisive questions have shifted to what to build and how to get distribution.
At the top of his list are AI-native products built on NEAR AI, alongside privacy-preserving over-the-counter trading. The remaining directions span consumer-facing applications, agent-driven commerce, and infrastructure that connects autonomous software to on-chain settlement.
Why the List Matters
The framing is a notable shift for a layer-1 that spent years competing on throughput and fees. Polosukhin’s emphasis on distribution over tooling reflects a broader maturation across the industry: with cheap blockspace now commoditized, the scarce resources are users, attention, and the ability to route real economic activity on-chain.
Placing AI first is consistent with NEAR’s recent positioning. The protocol has invested in an “AI-first” roadmap, including intent-based architectures and user-owned AI tooling, betting that autonomous agents will become the dominant interface for on-chain transactions. Private OTC, meanwhile, addresses a persistent complaint among large holders and institutions: the lack of confidential execution for size, a gap that has historically pushed block trades toward centralized venues.
Industry Implications
- Agent infrastructure becomes a competitive layer. If AI agents are the next consumer interface, chains that offer cheap inference, verifiable identity, and programmable payments will attract builders faster than those competing purely on TPS.
- Privacy is re-entering the mainstream roadmap. Confidential OTC signals that privacy is being reframed from a compliance liability into a functional requirement for institutional flow.
- Developer experience is table stakes. Polosukhin’s point that onboarding is easier implies differentiation now comes from product-market fit, not SDK quality.
Forward Look
The list should be read as a thesis rather than a product roadmap. Execution risk remains high: agent frameworks are still immature, and private trading venues face uneven regulatory treatment across jurisdictions. The near-term test will be whether returning developers convert these directions into applications with measurable usage, rather than another cycle of grant-funded prototypes. If even two or three of the eleven produce durable on-chain activity, NEAR’s bet on AI-adjacent infrastructure will look prescient; if not, the list will read as a familiar pattern of narrative-first positioning.
