NEAR expands onchain trading push as Polosukhin sees less need for centralized exchanges

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NEAR onchain trading push

Highlights

NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin announced expanded onchain trading offerings, including bank withdrawals, tax transaction records, and selective disclosure at Digital Asset Summit 2026.
Tokenized stocks became available on near.com after a September integration with Ondo Finance, with plans to extend global stock coverage and fiat-to-tokenized asset conversions.
NEAR Intents resumed operations after a $3.8 million exploit was patched, all funds returned, and Polosukhin highlighted NEAR's Agent Market integrating AI agents for user task execution.

Platform roadmap and exchange alternatives

As reported by The Block, NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin says users no longer need centralized exchanges for much of their crypto activity as near.com expands its onchain offerings. Speaking during a live interview at Digital Asset Summit 2026 in Singapore on Wednesday, he describes the platform as "almost there" and says its roadmap includes bank withdrawals, transaction records for tax purposes, and selective disclosure for confidential transactions.

Polosukhin argues the product is being built to unify spot trading across chains, tokenized stocks, earn products, and perpetual futures in a single interface. He also says most of the NEAR Intents infrastructure has moved to a confidential shard, with trading activity remaining private while users can still reveal individual transactions when needed.

He points to NEAR's existing work with Monerium, which lets users move between euros in a bank account and EURe through an IBAN. Over time, he says NEAR Intents is meant to support "any asset to any asset," including fiat conversions such as U.S. dollars to euros and Singapore dollars to Hong Kong dollars.

Broader market expansion and operational context

Tokenized stocks are already available on near.com after a September integration with Ondo Finance, and Polosukhin says the platform plans to add more stocks from markets around the world. He gives the example of moving from euros into tokenized Nvidia stock and says the roadmap extends beyond crypto-to-crypto transactions toward more fiat routes and, eventually, direct onchain commerce.

The strategy is unfolding shortly after NEAR Intents suffered a roughly $3.8 million exploit that temporarily halted services. A bug affected the interaction between its Omni deposit and withdrawal infrastructure and the NEAR Intents smart contract; the vulnerability was patched, affected users were promised compensation, services later returned online, and the funds were ultimately returned in full after an ultimatum from NEAR Intents General Manager Alex Shevchenko.

Polosukhin also says AI agents are becoming another interface for onchain markets, describing AI as the front-end and blockchain as the back-end. He points to NEAR's Agent Market, where users can request tasks in natural language, matched agents carry them out, and funds are held in escrow until the work is verified.

Our earlier article on tightening investor expectations for AI companies explained that rapid growth is no longer enough to prove a durable business as upcoming AI IPOs push the market to focus on retention, margins, and customer expansion. We noted that investors are increasingly favoring AI products that deliver measurable operational value, backed by domain expertise and access to proprietary customer data, while generic or easily replicable tools face tougher fundraising conditions.

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