SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – For years, the cryptocurrency industry has been looking for its next breakthrough moment — something akin to the scale of DeFi summer or the NFT craze. At the same time, artificial intelligence is also quietly integrated into daily life. Developers use ChatGPT as a co-pilot. Consumers rely on AI assistants to draft emails, plan trips and, increasingly, manage workflows. In comparison, cryptocurrencies still feel like infrastructure.
NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin believes this divide is about to disappear, but not in the way many expect.
“Users of blockchain will become artificial intelligence agents,” Polosukhin said in an interview. “Artificial intelligence will be on the front end and blockchain will be on the back end.”
His framework opposes much of cryptocurrencies’ recent experiments with artificial intelligence, which have largely focused on speculative tokens, meme coins, and agency-themed trading bots. Instead, Polosukhin believes that AI will become the primary interface layer for everything online, including cryptocurrencies, abstract wallets, browsers, and transaction hashes.
“The goal is to have your AI hide all of the blockchain,” he said. “The fact is we have [blockchain] Explorers actually failed because we didn’t have the abstraction technology. “
From this perspective, blockchain is not disappearing—it’s receding. AI agents interact directly with the protocol, executing payments, managing assets, coordinating services, and even voting in the governance system. Meanwhile, humans interact with artificial intelligence.
“Artificial intelligence is the front end, not just of blockchain, but of everything,” Polosukhin said. “In a few years, it will be just artificial intelligence, like an operating system.”
This shift, he believes, explains why cryptocurrencies haven’t had an “artificial intelligence moment” to rival the explosion of consumer tools. “Blockchain is financial in nature,” he said. “It will be limited to finance, but everything we do in life is finance.”
The role of cryptocurrencies may not be to compete with AI platforms, but to provide a neutral financial rail beneath them: settlement, ownership, verifiability, and programmable incentives.
Nonetheless, Polosukhin is critical of the way the industry has handled AI and governance so far — comments that come just days after Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin proposed “AI stewards” to help reshape DAO governance.
“In blockchain, we come up with technical solutions first and then ask: What is the core problem?” he said.
He cited Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) as an example. “DAOs have failed completely because they are unconstrained and not really designed to solve any problem,” he said. Governance tools, including AI-assisted voting agents, only make sense if they are tied to clearly defined economic or coordination needs, he said.
Another point of friction between the AI and cryptocurrency communities is culture. “Meme coins are ruining [the industry’s] Polosukhin said rampant speculation and scams have alienated serious AI researchers. “AI people are effectively banning cryptocurrencies because of memecoins.”
However, long-term convergence may be more about infrastructure than token issuance. As AI systems increasingly act on behalf of users, such as paying bills, hiring services, and allocating capital, they will require trusted execution, privacy, and programmable financial coordination.
“Blockchain is about neutral markets and neutral infrastructure,” Polosukhin said.
If AI becomes the operating system of the internet, the future of cryptocurrencies may lie not in becoming the apps users open, but in becoming the invisible settlement layer their AI agents quietly rely on.
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