NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin has outlined 13 application concepts spanning AI-powered consumer products, private trading, cross-chain payments and developer tools, alongside five distribution strategies aimed at helping projects attract users across the crypto ecosystem.
In an Oct. 3 X post, Polosukhin said building on NEAR had become easier for new and returning developers, shifting the challenge toward deciding what products to build and how to reach users. His proposals centered heavily on NEAR Intents and NEAR AI as infrastructure for applications that can operate across chains while reducing technical complexity for users.
One proposed use case is a universal checkout widget that would allow customers to pay through NEAR Intents using assets and wallets they already hold on other networks. Polosukhin suggested taking the product directly to merchants and potentially integrating it with Shopify. He also proposed a cross-chain event registration system that would hold attendee deposits in escrow and distribute the funds among participants who attend.
Wallet interoperability was another focus. Polosukhin pointed to Aurora’s Intent Connect as a way for users to access applications on other chains without manually bridging assets or learning to operate on NEAR. Aurora Labs previously described an integration enabling supported assets from other networks to interact with Sui applications through Intents Connect.
For consumer applications, Polosukhin proposed an AI-powered digital pet represented by an NFT, with a NEAR balance used to fund AI inference. The concept could include feeding, customization, battles and competitions. Other AI-focused ideas included an encyclopedia based on prediction markets, private AI benchmarking using confidential datasets and applications capable of verifying AI-generated results.
Polosukhin also outlined several private trading concepts. These included a marketplace for finding counterparties for private OTC deals, social trading based on access to private transaction activity, and automated management of lending and perpetual-futures positions. Another proposal would combine spot and perpetual positions under a contract designed to manage delta-neutral strategies through NEAR Intents.
The ideas extend beyond trading and payments into private AI applications. Polosukhin proposed tools for reviewing private software pull requests, analyzing encrypted health information and transcribing recordings while keeping users’ data locally stored. He also suggested using NEAR staking as an alternative mechanism for funding certain AI services rather than relying exclusively on subscriptions.
For businesses, his proposals included a capitalization-table platform combining fundraising instruments, crypto payments and banking support. On distribution, he recommended that developers work with NEARLegion, collaborate with other communities, use product-discovery platforms such as Product Hunt and promote applications through X.
The proposals illustrate a broader effort to position NEAR infrastructure around applications where AI agents, cross-chain transactions and privacy intersect. However, the concepts remain proposals rather than evidence that the suggested products have been launched or achieved adoption.
