Aydin Cimen

[NEAR Protocol @NEARProtocol]

Bankless

Illia with @TrustlessState on the case for digital sovereignty: as AI consolidates, NEAR is building the user-owned alternative, with confidential inference and private agents transacting across Confidential Intents.

https://t.co/zOT2PogvJf

[NEAR Protocol @NEARProtocol]

ICYMI: From Bankless to The Rollup to the Defiant, the wider industry has been recognizing NEAR's critical role as confidential infrastructure for both crypto and AI, and turning to NEAR Co-founder @ilblackdragon to understand what's at stake in the agent economy.

A roundup 🧵

[Aydin Cimen @aydncmn]

ÖDÜLÜMÜ ALDIM... You Just Got Paid! I have claimed my daily #HODL / #BNB reward via @HODL_OFFICIAL :) Check it out! #passiveincome https://t.co/rbkxY6FNzh

[Aydin Cimen @aydncmn]

You Just Got Paid! I have claimed my daily #HODL / #BNB reward via @HODL_OFFICIAL :) Check it out! #passiveincome https://t.co/rbkxY6FNzh

[NEAR Protocol @NEARProtocol]

AI is about to become the largest creator of economic activity in human history.

The question is who owns it.

The world is waking up to the need for user-owned AI. But user-owned AI means much more than open-source models or self-hosting.

It means users retain ownership, control, and economic participation as AI becomes the primary interface to the internet. In a world where agents work, earn, spend, negotiate, invest, and create value on behalf of billions of people, users need guarantees:

-Privacy: your data belongs to you
-Verifiability: you can prove what ran, on what data, and with what model
-Neutrality: everyone has equal access and markets are open
-Alignment: AI acts in your interests

User-owned AI requires a complete stack.

The next internet won’t be navigated primarily by humans. It will be navigated by agents acting on behalf of humans.

Every search, purchase, investment, booking, workflow, and business process will increasingly be delegated. The infrastructure governing those interactions will determine who captures the value they create.

Long before AI became mainstream, NEAR recognized that an agent-driven economy would require scalable execution, user-owned accounts, privacy, verifiable computation, and neutral coordination layers. The last decade has been spent building those foundations.

Today, those foundations are beginning to power real-world systems.

NEAR AI’s private inference powers Venice’s privacy-preserving AI platform, serving more than 3 million registered users. Major fintech platforms like Abound and the Government of Bermuda are integrating NEAR AI for applications where protecting sensitive financial and citizen data is critical. NEAR AI Cloud now provides anonymization and TEE-secured confidential inference across more than 30 models spanning both frontier and open-source AI.

But this is only the beginning.

The privacy renaissance emerging across crypto is the opening act of a much larger shift. Users increasingly expect ownership over their assets. Soon they will demand ownership over their data. Then ownership over their agents. And ultimately ownership over the value those agents create. Agents won’t simply streamline existing economic activity. They will create entirely new forms of value. They will discover opportunities. Coordinate work. Allocate capital. Negotiate services. Build businesses. And participate in markets on behalf of users.

The defining question of the next decade isn’t whether AI creates value. It’s who owns the systems that distribute it.

A future where a handful of companies own the models, interfaces, decisions, and economic flows of billions of people is one possible outcome.

Or:

A future where users own their data, their assets, their intelligence, and the value generated on their behalf is another.

NEAR is building for the second future.

[NEAR Protocol @NEARProtocol]

Who should control access to AI in the future: users or platforms?

Join us tomorrow for The Off Switch: User-Owned AI After Mythos 5. A live discussion on privacy, verifiable AI, and building systems that align with users.

Ft. @ilblackdragon with @jswihart and @sabrinaesaquino.

[NEAR Protocol @NEARProtocol]

The world is waking up to the need for user-owned AI. 

What user-owned really means:

-Privacy: all data belongs to you
-Verifiability: when work is done on your behalf, you can prove what ran, on what data, with what model
-Neutrality: equal access and neutral markets
-Alignment: AI is on your side

User-owned AI goes far beyond the model layer. It means a completely user-owned stack, from verifiable inference to private money rails to a secure agent harness to transparent governance and economics for the whole system.

Layer by layer, NEAR has been building the user-owned AI stack for nearly a decade. It began with Illia’s pioneering work on the Transformer architecture, which underpins all major frontier models today, and the early recognition that the AI economy needed open infrastructure if users were going to have real power of choice. 

NEAR made early architectural bets on sharded scalability, an account model, chain abstraction, and privacy that are now the foundation for agents to transact at scale while ensuring user sovereignty. 

The demand for user-owned AI is growing. NEAR AI’s private inference powers Venice’s privacy-preserving AI platform, which has grown to over 3M registered users. Major fintech platforms like Abound and the Government of Bermuda are integrating NEAR AI for applications where protecting sensitive user and citizen data is critical. NEAR AI Cloud also now provides anonymization and TEE-secured confidential inference for over 30 models, across major AI providers and open-source models. 

The privacy renaissance we’ve been witnessing in DeFi is the opening act of a much larger, global shift toward a user-owned AI economy, where users demand sovereignty over their data, assets, and intelligence. 

NEAR is building for that world, one where everyone has maximum leverage through AI, rather than a few companies owning the models and interfaces that own the data and decisions of billions.

Not only are we witnessing a macro shift in user expectations, but also a whole new category of value taking shape. Given the proper rails, agents will not only streamline current value channels but create many new ones. The infrastructure that shares that value back with users is the infrastructure users truly own.

[NEAR Protocol @NEARProtocol]

Perps are the center of gravity for crypto liquidity, with over $86T in volume across CEXs and $6.7T across DEXs last year.

From crypto to RWAs to perps, NEAR Intents is onboarding new asset classes and markets to unlock a universal liquidity layer that's reachable anywhere.

[NEAR Protocol @NEARProtocol]

The total addressable market of NEAR Intents, a conservative estimate:

[$HODL Official 🔶 @HODL_Official]

We’ve been building on @BNBCHAIN since the 2021 bull run.

The OG $HODL has delivered over 20,600 BNB in rewards to a community of 120,000+ users — and we’re still here, still building, still pushing.

Apps. Games. Rewards. Utility. Community.

Ready for the next bull run. Are you ready to claim BNB with us?

https://t.co/42thjExvSI

#HODL #HODLcoin #HODLtoken #HODLers #HODLing #BNBchain

[NEAR Protocol @NEARProtocol]

Daily confidential TVL on NEAR Intents is picking up.

The DeFi privacy renaissance is just the opening act of a larger shift to a user-owned economy, where users control their assets, data, and intelligence, and have a real stake in the protocols they participate in.

The market has spoken. Decentralized, open-source, verifiable, and privacy-preserving technologies are the ingredients of the future.

[NEAR Protocol @NEARProtocol]

The stakes are no longer hypothetical.

NEAR AI is bringing verifiable, private inference to Venice, Abound, Bermuda, Brave, and other major platforms.

The demand for user-owned AI is here.

[NEAR Protocol @NEARProtocol]

Why Private AI Matters

Illia Polosukhin (@ilblackdragon) and Erik Voorhees (@ErikVoorhees) join @StevenLevy for a conversation on why privacy is essential to the next generation of intelligent systems.

The ability to execute without exposing data is a requirement not a feature.

[NEAR Protocol @NEARProtocol]

A unified super app for your finances.

What you can do from a single account on https://t.co/YBUSFVdjxE right now:

- Swap across 35+ blockchains
- Confidential Intents
- Trade peer-to-peer

Coming next: AI assistance, RWAs, fiat access, earn, and more

[Aydin Cimen @aydncmn]

https://t.co/sNUIai6S3z

[NEAR Protocol @NEARProtocol]

A unified super app for your finances.

What you can do from a single account on https://t.co/YBUSFVdjxE right now:

- Swap across 35+ blockchains
- Confidential Intents
- Trade peer-to-peer

Coming next: AI assistance, RWAs, fiat access, earn, and more

[Aydin Cimen @aydncmn]

@nowhaber @karagozilker #Banamasalanlatma anlattiklarinin hepsi senin yüzünden. Suçla AK partiyi.

[Aydin Cimen @aydncmn]

@nowhaber @karagozilker #Banamasalanlatma neden destekledin o zaman sorabilirmisiniz. secimde iktidar değişikliği olmasi gerektigini bilmiyormuş. Yeni anlamış bizim paşa ya böyle boş konuşanları niye çıkarıyorsunuz anlamıyorum ki ya

[Aydin Cimen @aydncmn]

@nowhaber @karagozilker #BanaMasalAnlatma Fatih Erbakan böyle olacağını ben bu kalın kafamla anladım. Sen onları desteklerken anlamadın mı. Oraya çıkıp herşeyde hükümeti suçlamak kolay değil mi...

[NEAR Protocol @NEARProtocol]

Intern just picked up some HEAT 🔥

Keep your eyes peeled for more around San Francisco as we draw closer to NEARCON 👀

[NEAR Protocol @NEARProtocol]

✦ $10B NEAR INTENTS VOLUME ✦

In 2025, NEAR Intents became the fastest-growing infrastructure for cross-chain swaps. Now, Intents is on its way to becoming the universal venue for trading crypto and more.

More chains. More assets. More liquidity. More users. More commerce.