Layer 01
Infrastructure
Open infrastructure built on technologies years ahead of their time.
AI origin · Smart accounts · Dynamic sharding · Chain Signatures · Quantum-safe signing
01/04The proposal
NEAR built early for the world taking shape today.
AI-native software. Accounts built for programs. A network designed to scale. These were long bets when NEAR made them. Aurora EVM, Intents, Confidential, and AI carried those bets forward. near.com, NEAR AI Cloud, and IronClaw show why they matter now.
What NEAR needs
An evergreen story people can understand, remember, and retell.
Why narrative matters
Meaning lives in the sequence.
The right story gives every launch a place in something larger.
The structure stays constant as the story evolves: foundations create capabilities, capabilities enable products, and every new chapter has a natural place to belong.
02/04The layers
The story has three layers.
The infrastructure creates new capabilities. Those capabilities enable frontier products.
Layer 02
Capabilities
Tools for dedicated execution, requesting outcomes, protecting data, and letting software act.
Aurora EVM · NEAR Intents · NEAR Confidential · NEAR AI
Layer 03
Products
Products that transcend the ecosystem.
near.com · NEAR AI Cloud · IronClaw
Layer 01 · The infrastructure
NEAR’s story starts with AI.
2017
“We propose a new simple network architecture, the Transformer…”Attention Is All You Need · co-authored by Illia Polosukhin
Before NEAR was a protocol, it was NEAR.ai.
In 2017, Illia Polosukhin and Alexander Skidanov set out to teach machines to write code. As the project grew, a larger need came into view: open AI would require open infrastructure—permissionless, decentralized, and built for global scale. In 2018, they began building the network that became NEAR Protocol.
Years ahead of its time. AI-native software. Accounts built for programs. A network designed to scale. NEAR was building for the agentic economy before it had a name.
Smart accounts
Accounts can hold multiple keys, each with its own permissions.
Dynamic sharding
Shards split and merge with demand, scaling NEAR toward one million transactions per second.
Chain Signatures
Accounts and contracts can sign for accounts on other chains.
Fast finality
Transactions settle quickly and cheaply enough for everyday product use.
Quantum-safe signing
Accounts can use signatures designed to withstand future quantum attacks.
Origin and protocol details summarized from NEAR’s official history, NEAR’s blockchain overview, Access Keys, the Chain Signatures overview, and Illia’s mainnet upgrade announcement.
Layer 02 · The capabilities
Infrastructure, put to work.
Emerging technologies that carry the story forward.
Capability 01
Aurora EVM
Bespoke EVM
Custom, EVM-compatible chains run on NEAR with familiar Ethereum tooling and dedicated execution.
Capability 02
NEAR Intents
Outcomes first
A person or agent says what they want. Solvers compete to deliver it.
Capability 03
NEAR Confidential
Private execution
Orders and sensitive data can stay private while transactions still connect to public markets.
Capability 04
NEAR AI
Private intelligence
Models can work with sensitive information while keeping it private.
Together, they let software understand a goal, protect the data behind it, and carry out the action.
Public descriptions: Aurora EVM, NEAR Intents, Confidential Intents, and NEAR AI.
Layer 03 · The products
The products carry NEAR into the world.
near.com brings confidential, permissionless finance to people. NEAR AI Cloud gives businesses private intelligence they can verify. IronClaw turns that infrastructure into an agent for real work.
One account. No borders. Your financial life, onchain.
near.com
A permissionless, private financial app you want to live in. A place to trade, earn, pay, and participate in the modern economy—while chains, wallets, bridges, and routes disappear into the experience.
Visit near.com
Private intelligence for business
NEAR AI Cloud
On-demand private AI inference for businesses. Teams can run frontier models inside hardware-secured environments, with requests kept confidential and results independently verifiable.
Explore NEAR AI Cloud
Private agents for real work
IronClaw
An open-source agent, built around the principles of private, verifiable, self-sovereign AI.
Explore IronClaw
Open stewardship
Open infrastructure needs open stewardship.
House of Stake
NEAR’s experiment in open economic stewardship: a tokenholder-led Treasury Governance Engine working in seasons to test how the ecosystem sets policy, allocates resources, and evolves.
03/04The story
NEAR made the right bets early.
AI-native software. Programmable accounts. A network designed to scale. Cross-chain execution. Confidentiality. Secure agents. NEAR built each piece before the whole picture was obvious.
01
Accounts built for software
Different keys can carry different permissions for people, applications, and agents.
02
Transactions across chains
Intents and Chain Signatures connect accounts and assets across separate networks.
03
Confidential execution
Transactions and AI workloads can use sensitive information confidentially.
04
AI that can take action
Agents can work with tools, accounts, and assets.
05
Products beyond the ecosystem
near.com brings the stack into financial life. NEAR AI Cloud brings confidential intelligence to businesses. IronClaw puts secure agents to work.
NEAR has a track record of building what the market will need next—often before the need itself comes into view. Now, that foresight is converging on the agentic economy.
The next chapter
Open infrastructure for the agentic economy.
2026
and beyond
People and agents transact freely in the traditional and onchain worlds, with privacy by default.
Builders can use the same open stack behind near.com, NEAR AI Cloud, and IronClaw to create what comes next.
The narrative · 60 seconds
The story, told in 60 seconds.
NEAR’s story starts with AI.
In 2017, Illia Polosukhin helped write Attention Is All You Need, the paper that introduced the Transformer.
That same year, Illia and Alexander Skidanov started NEAR.ai to teach machines to write code.
As the project grew, a larger need came into view: open AI would require open infrastructure—permissionless, decentralized, and built for global scale. In 2018, they began building the network that became NEAR Protocol.
Those were long bets. NEAR was building for the agentic economy years before it had a name.
AI-native software. Smart accounts. Dynamic sharding. Chain Signatures. Quantum-safe signing.
House of Stake carries the same openness into economic stewardship: an experiment in how tokenholders can shape policy and direct resources as the ecosystem evolves.
Then came Aurora EVM, Intents, Confidential, and NEAR AI. They gave builders familiar execution, let people and software ask for an outcome, keep sensitive information private, and complete actions across the internet.
Now we can see the products.
near.com is the permissionless, private financial app you want to live in. A place to trade, earn, pay, and participate in the modern economy—while chains, wallets, bridges, and routes disappear into the experience.
NEAR AI Cloud gives businesses private, verifiable AI on demand. Teams can run frontier models while sensitive requests remain confidential.
IronClaw is an early example of what builders can deploy on top: secure, open-source agents that can use tools and take action.
near.com and NEAR AI Cloud were built on NEAR. IronClaw runs on that private AI foundation. All three are made to travel far beyond the ecosystem.
Together, they show what open infrastructure for the agentic economy looks like: confidential financial life for people, confidential intelligence for businesses, and a foundation anyone can build on.
The big picture is NEAR.
04/04The application
A few lines to build around.
Creative direction
Show the story unfolding.
Begin with the Transformer and NEAR.ai. Build layer by layer until near.com, NEAR AI Cloud, and IronClaw appear.
Origin
The Transformer and NEAR.ai establish an early bet on AI-native software.
Infrastructure
Smart accounts, dynamic sharding, Chain Signatures, fast finality, and quantum-safe signing.
Capabilities
Aurora EVM, Intents, Confidential, and AI appear one by one.
Products
near.com becomes a financial home. NEAR AI Cloud gives businesses private intelligence. IronClaw puts secure agents to work.
The world opens
People, agents, money, and private markets move across every chain.
Look and feel
- Calm and confident
- Architecture shown clearly
- Darkness giving way to clarity
- Real products in the final act
Story beats
- Make the early work feel years ahead of its time
- Show each layer building on the last
- Make near.com, NEAR AI Cloud, and IronClaw feel useful and real
- End in the open agentic economy they enable
The ask
Use this story across the brand.
Agree the core story and the three layers.
Show where each new launch belongs in the story.
Use the same storyline in founder, partner, and investor presentations.
Make the next launch feel like the next chapter.