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. --- 🧭OKX | 120M+ USERS WORLDWIDE https://bankless.cc/OKXapp --- BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🔮POLYMARKET | #1 PREDICTION MARKET https://bankless.cc/polymarket-podcast 🟦 COINBASE ONE | MEMBER MONTH https://bankless.cc/coinbase-one 🧭OKX | TRADE, EARN, PAY to OKX | 120M+ USERS WORLDWIDE https://app.okx.com/join/USBANKLESS 🦊 METAMASK | DOWNLOAD NOW https://go.metamask.io/BL-Pod-Download 🌐BRIX | EMERGING MARKET YIELD https://bankless.cc/brix 🎯THE DEFI REPORT | ONCHAIN INSIGHTS https://thedefireport.io/bankless --- 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 --- RESOURCES Sal Ternullo https://x.com/sal_ternullo SVRN https://x.com/svrn_ai --- Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures