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NEAR Co-Founder Says AI Will Be Blockchain's Main User

#IlliaPolosukhin, co-founder of the #NEAR protocol, said in a recent interview that AI systems, rather than people, are on track to become the primary users of blockchain networks, with crypto eventually functioning as invisible financial infrastructure beneath an AI-driven internet.

"The users of blockchain will be AI agents," Polosukhin said. "AI is going to be on the front-end, and blockchain is going to be the back-end." He argues that AI will evolve into the main interface layer across the internet, handling payments, asset management, governance participation, and service coordination on behalf of users who interact only with the AI itself.

Polosukhin sees the continued existence of wallets, block explorers, and transaction hashes as evidence that the industry has not sufficiently abstracted its technology from end users. "The goal is to make your #AI hide all the blockchain," he said. "The fact that we have explorers is effectively a failure, because we don't abstract the technology." In this model, blockchain infrastructure persists but recedes from view entirely.

He ties this framing to what he describes as crypto's failure to produce a consumer moment on par with the adoption of generative AI tools. His explanation is that #blockchain is inherently financial in nature, which limits its surface area. "It will be limited to finance, but everything we do in our life is finance," he said, suggesting that limitation also defines its future relevance as neutral rails for an AI-managed economy.

Polosukhin is critical of how the #crypto industry has handled the intersection of AI and blockchain so far. He said the prevalence of meme coins and speculative agent-themed products has pushed serious AI researchers away from the space entirely. "The meme coins are ruining the industry's reputation," he said.