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

NEAR keeps showing up in strange places: cross-chain wallets, privacy apps, AI infrastructure, and now the emerging agent economy. Sal Ternullo, CEO of SVRN, joins us to explain why he thinks this is not another NEAR pivot, but the original thesis finally coming into focus. They dig into NEAR Intents, AI money, tokenomics, privacy, fee capture, agentic commerce, and why SVRN is trying to commercialize the NEAR ecosystem rather than simply hold the asset.

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TIMESTAMPS

0:00 Intro
2:23 Why NEAR Keeps Showing Up
3:58 Pivot or Return to Roots?
7:41 The “AI Money” Thesis
9:54 Intents, Zashi, and Real Product Market Fit
11:38 Tokenomics, Buybacks, and Value Accrual
14:45 NEAR’s Different Approach From Ethereum
18:00 Fees, Scaling, and First-Party Apps
23:04 Cross-Chain Liquidity as NEAR’s Moat
28:27 The Contrarian Investor Case for NEAR
31:43 Privacy, Enterprises, and AI Agents
39:38 What SVRN Is Building for NEAR
46:00 Investor Sentiment and Final Thoughts

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RESOURCES

Sal Ternullo
https://x.com/sal_ternullo

SVRN
https://x.com/svrn_ai

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