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We caught up with Layer-1 blockchain NEAR Protocol's co-founder, Illia Polosukhin, during Token2049. A tech veteran in the space, Polosukhin had previously worked on notable companies such as Google and OpenAI before leading the development of NEAR.
The NEAR Protocol, often referred to as the Layer-1 Blockchain Operating System (BOS) among crypto natives, is a full-stack Web3 development and app distribution platform with a focus on solving blockchain's cumbersome UX and scalability issues.
Founded in 2017, NEAR launched on mainnet in October 2020, and after raising $150 million in January 2022, raised $350 million more 3 months later, in a funding round led by Tiger Global, the venture fund led by billionaire financier Chase Coleman. FTX Ventures, Blockchange Ventures, and Dragonfly Capital, also joined the raise.
Recently, NEAR Protocol successfully onboarded over 1 million users with the launch of KAIKAINOW, an AI-driven interactive smartphone lock screen that rewards users for engagement with personalised news, learning and entertainment content.
Taking the No.1 spot for the most used decentralized application (dApp) on Dapp Radar, we asked Polosukhin questions on the challenges NEAR faces with the SEC, whether the price of NEAR matters for its users and if the narratives surrounding $NEAR are able to grow its user adoption.
