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Polosukhin claims that AI will serve as the main interface layer for all online activities, including crypto, simplifying the use of wallets, explorers, and transaction hashes.
What to know:
- For years, the crypto sector has been on the lookout for its next major breakthrough — something akin to the DeFi summer or the NFT boom.
- Artificial intelligence, on the other hand, has gradually integrated into everyday life. Developers are utilizing ChatGPT as a co-pilot. Users depend on AI assistants for drafting emails, organizing travel, and increasingly managing workflows. In contrast, crypto still appears to be foundational.
- Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of NEAR, posits that this divide is on the verge of closing — but not in the anticipated manner.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – For years, the crypto sector has been on the lookout for its next major breakthrough — something akin to the DeFi summer or the NFT boom. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence has gradually integrated into everyday life. Developers are utilizing ChatGPT as a co-pilot. Users depend on AI assistants for drafting emails, organizing travel, and increasingly managing workflows. In contrast, crypto still appears to be foundational.
Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of NEAR, posits that this divide is on the verge of closing — but not in the anticipated manner.
“The users of blockchain will be AI agents,” Polosukhin stated in an interview. “AI is going to be on the front end, and blockchain is going to be the back end.”
His perspective contrasts with much of crypto’s recent experimentation with AI, which has primarily focused on speculative tokens, memecoins, and agent-themed trading bots. Instead, Polosukhin contends that AI will emerge as the main interface layer for all things online, including crypto, simplifying the use of wallets, explorers, and transaction hashes.
“The aim is to have your AI conceal all the blockchain,” he remarked. “The existence of [blockchain] explorers is essentially a failure because we don’t abstract the technology.”
In this perspective, blockchain does not vanish — it diminishes. AI agents engage with protocols directly, processing payments, managing assets, coordinating services, and even participating in governance systems. Humans, in turn, interact with the AI.
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“AI is the front end, not just for blockchain, but for everything,” Polosukhin asserted. “In a few years, it’s going to be solely AI, similar to the operating system.”
This transition, he argues, could clarify why crypto has yet to experience an “AI moment” comparable to the consumer surge of generative tools. “Blockchain is intrinsically financial,” he stated. “It will be confined to finance, but everything we engage with in our lives is finance.”
Rather than competing with AI platforms, crypto’s function may be to offer neutral financial infrastructure beneath them: settlement, ownership, verifiability, and programmable incentives.
Nonetheless, Polosukhin critiques how the sector has approached both AI and governance thus far — remarks made just days after Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin suggested “AI stewards” to help revamp DAO governance.
“In blockchain, we propose technical solutions before asking: what is the core problem?” he noted.
He cites decentralized autonomous organizations, or DAOs, as an illustration. “DAOs have significantly faltered because they have been unbounded, not genuinely designed to address any issue,” he stated, arguing that governance tools, including AI-assisted voting agents, only hold value if they are linked to clearly defined economic or coordination requirements.
Another point of friction between the AI and crypto communities has been cultural. “The memecoins are damaging [the industry’s] reputation,” Polosukhin remarked, stating that rampant speculation and scams have distanced serious AI researchers. “AI professionals are effectively banning crypto due to memecoins.”
The long-term convergence, however, may focus less on token launches and more on infrastructure. As AI systems increasingly operate on users’ behalf, such as settling bills, hiring services, and allocating resources, they will necessitate trusted execution, privacy, and programmable financial coordination.
“Blockchain is about neutral markets and neutral infrastructure,” Polosukhin concluded.
If AI evolves into the operating system of the internet, crypto’s future may not center on being the application users access, but rather on becoming the unseen settlement layer their AI agents rely upon.
Read more: NEAR Launches Near.com super app, touting AI capabilities and confidential transactions
