Illia Polosukhin joins us to discuss how NEAR is building the blockchain operating system. NEAR first came to prominence in 2020 as an alternative Layer One that is laser-focused on abstracting the complexities of onchain infrastructure. Since then, Illia (who is one of the brightest minds in crypto) and the NEAR team have transformed NEAR into crypto's interoperability layer. In this episode, we discuss NEAR's journey from AI to crypto, why NEAR scales via sharding, NEAR's chain abstraction and account aggregation layer, the AI narrative, crypto's biggest problem and more!

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(00:00) Introduction

(00:49) NEAR's Transformation: From AI to Crypto

(03:22) Scaling via Dynamic Shards: Near’s Unique Design

(21:20) Access Protocol Ad

(22:21) DAS London Plug

(23:18) NEAR’s Data Availability Service

(27:16) Chain Abstraction and the Blockchain Operating System

(40:03) NEAR’s Missing Narrative

(43:40) Network Value Accrual

(49:18) The AI x Crypto Narrative

(59:33) What Is Crypto’s Biggest Problem?

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Resources

The NEAR Whiteboard Series

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9tzQn_TEuFWweVbfTbaedFdwVrvaYPq4

NEAR

https://twitter.com/NEARProtocol

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Disclaimers:

Lightspeed was kickstarted by a grant from the Solana Foundation.

Nothing said on Lightspeed is a recommendation to buy or sell securities or tokens. This podcast is for informational purposes only, and any views expressed by anyone on the show are solely our opinions, not financial advice. Mert, Garrett and our guests may hold positions in the companies, funds, or projects discussed.