Uneasy Money: Illia Polosukhin on Why Onchain Commerce Needs Confidentiality

Illia Polosukhin, founder of NEAR and co-author of 'Attention Is All You Need,' on why confidentiality will let crypto become daily commerce — plus, some Near lore. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsors! ⁠⁠Multichain Advisors⁠⁠: Get help navigating TGEs, go‑to‑market, BD and partnerships, capital markets advisory, PR, media placements, KOL activations and more at ⁠⁠multichainadv.com⁠⁠. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Coinbase One⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠coinbase.com/unchained⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. ======================================================== Before co-founding NEAR Protocol, Illia Polosukhin was on the eight-person Google Brain team that wrote the transformer paper — the architecture behind every large language model running today. He never mentioned it. When Kain Warwick found out two weeks ago, via a crypto AI chatbot, his reaction was: you have to be kidding me. That backstory sets the tone for a conversation that moves from how transformers actually came together, to why confidentiality is what unlocks on-chain commerce for real businesses, and what NEAR is doing to keep criminals off its network without becoming a surveillance layer. The hosts also get into the Ethereum Foundation's identity crisis, why Illia thinks decentralization is a tool and not a goal, and what the economy looks like when AI handles execution and blockchain handles coordination. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Founder of Infinex and Synthetix ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Security Expert ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Luca Netz⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, CEO of Pudgy Penguins Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Illia Polosukhin — Co-Founder, NEAR Protocol - https://x.com/ilblackdragon Timestamps 🧠 00:52 The transformer paper: how Illia ended up on 'Attention Is All You Need' 🔗 05:57 Confidential Intents: how NEAR brings privacy to assets across every chain 💵 15:05 Why private stablecoins are the missing piece in on-chain commerce 🛡️ 24:58 Shield: NEAR's AI system scanning chains in real time to block illicit funds 🔓 25:46 The Litecoin MimbleWimble hack and what went wrong with the disclosure timeline ⛓️ 40:03 Multichain Advisors: [ad copy TBD — placeholder] at multichainadv.com 🎯 40:39 Coinbase One: boost newly staked assets 40% through May 31 at https://coinbase.com/unchained 🏛️ 42:24 What Vitalik's “smaller ship” post reveals about the Ethereum Foundation 🤝 48:33 How NEAR pitched its sharding work to the EF twice and got turned away 🛋️ 55:24 Tay compares the EF to Google and says "don't be evil" is a non-goal 🌐 63:45 Why Illia thinks decentralization is a tool, not a goal 🤖 68:22 How organizations change when AI agents can do the work 💀 78:34 Illia thinks DAOs “never worked” because of the credit assignment problem 📊 79:55 Illia's close: Markets solve what organizations can't Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices