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NEAR co-founder proposes sovereign fund to hold treasury in $NEAR

NEAR co-founder proposes sovereign fund to hold treasury in $NEAR

Illia Polosukhin's proposal would seed a fund with about 30 million NEAR, direct protocol revenue into NEAR-denominated reserves, and use yield for security and public goods under governance oversight.

NEAR

Fact Check
The primary source — the official NEAR governance forum post authored by 'illia (NEAR Core)' at gov.near.org — directly confirms all claim elements: a NEAR Sovereign Fund holding treasury/revenue in $NEAR, starting from the current ~30M NEAR treasury, generating yield to pay for security, validators, MPC providers and public goods, and a long-term goal of transitioning to a fixed token supply. Multiple independent secondary reports (CryptoBriefing, TheBlockBeats, PANews) corroborate the same details with no conflicting accounts.
Summary

NEAR Protocol co-founder and NEAR Foundation CEO Illia Polosukhin has proposed creating a protocol sovereign fund to support the network's long-term tokenomics, with roughly 30 million NEAR as initial capital and future protocol revenue also directed into the fund. At about $1.8 per token at press time, the proposed treasury would be worth approximately $57 million. Rather than burning revenue to reduce supply temporarily, Polosukhin wants protocol income converted into NEAR and managed as a NEAR-denominated reserve that could generate yield to fund public goods, including validator support, network security and MPC providers. The idea is still at the discussion stage, with House of Stake delegates expected to participate through existing governance mechanisms and stakeholders invited to comment over the next two weeks before any formal proposal, vote or implementation details are considered. The proposal also ties into broader tokenomics changes at NEAR, including a late-2025 inflation cut from about 5% to roughly 2.5% and a February 2026 Intents fee switch that directs revenue toward NEAR purchases. Polosukhin said that, if the model proves successful, it could eventually help reduce inflation further and potentially move the network toward a fixed token supply, though that outcome remains unapproved.

Terms & Concepts
  • House of Stake: NEAR's economic governance body, which oversees areas such as treasury management, inflation, fees and incentive design.
  • MPC providers: Service providers that use multiparty computation to perform sensitive cryptographic tasks without one participant controlling the full key.
  • tokenomics: The economic design of a crypto network, including how token supply, incentives and revenue flows are managed.