Altcoins News

Story: NEAR Co-Founder Illia Polosukhin Wants a $450M Fund to Keep Protocol Running

By Sydney TheCMO

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How the Fund Would Actually Work. The plan isn't just to park cash somewhere. Per the proposal, a team of experienced professionals…

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Community Vote Is the Real Hurdle. None of this happens without the community. The proposal needs to go through a vote by NEAR's…

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A Model Others Might Copy. If NEAR pulls this off, it probably won't be the last project to try it.

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NEAR Protocol wants a war chest. A $450 million one, to be exact — and the idea comes straight from co-founder Illia Polosukhin.

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Polosukhin put forward a proposal to build what he's calling a sovereign fund for NEAR Protocol, modeled after the kind of national wealth vehicles you'd find in Norway or…

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The initial capital earmarked for the fund sits at $450 million.

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The plan isn't just to park cash somewhere. Per the proposal, a team of experienced professionals would manage the fund's assets, with a focus on generating solid returns while…

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Sovereign wealth funds and university endowments work on this same principle. Norway's Government Pension Fund, for instance, has long been cited as a model for how to turn a…

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No specific breakdown of where the $450 million would be invested was included in the proposal. Unclear whether that detail comes later or gets worked out post-approval.

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None of this happens without the community. The proposal needs to go through a vote by NEAR's community members before anything moves forward.

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NEAR operates under a decentralized governance model, so the community holds real power here. If they back it, the fund moves ahead. If they don't, Polosukhin's plan stalls.

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The stakes are real. NEAR has been pushing for broader adoption and trying to carve out a durable position in a competitive blockchain market.

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And the timing matters. Crypto markets have been volatile enough that projects relying purely on token treasury reserves have found themselves in trouble before.

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If NEAR pulls this off, it probably won't be the last project to try it. The idea of a blockchain protocol running its finances like a sovereign wealth fund is unusual right now,…

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Whether it works depends a lot on who manages the fund and how the investments perform. A poorly run endowment can erode principal fast.

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