The Rollup (@therollupco)

NEW EP: Inside @NEARProtocol 10+ Years Building Toward the Agent Economy with Illia Polosukhin (@ilblackdragon) From pioneering the transformer architecture now used in every AI stack to building the rails for the agent economy, NEAR Co-Founder Illia Polosukhin connects the full arc in this inaugural episode of “Inside NEAR,” a new quarterly series on The Rollup. Illia breaks down NEAR’s early architectural bets that are now paying off, why privacy had to be a base-layer choice, and how it all culminates in NEAR becoming AI money: the unit of account for inference, compute, and every agent-to-agent transaction settling onchain. With $20 billion+ in Intents volume and a path to deflation, the thesis is simple: NEAR’s TAM isn't crypto, it's all of commerce. Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 01:38 State Of NEAR Quarterly 04:32 The Transformer's Origin Story 06:51 NEAR Started As AI 11:40 Post-Quantum Crypto Coming Soon 13:48 Root Of Trust Solved 19:36 Target Market All Commerce 20:41 AI Frontend Blockchain Backend 22:44 Confidential Intents TVL Rising 28:51 Fee Switch Turned On 34:04 NEAR Is AI Money 36:30 One Line Changes Reality Full episode links below.

Yan Liberman says the technically correct answer for when to start returning capital to token holders is much later than anyone in crypto wants to hear. Public companies only do buybacks and dividends at very late stage, because there's no better use of the capital for growth. The proxy is clear. In crypto, it happens earlier. Not because the business is better positioned. Because token holders are apprehensive about what they actually own, the link between token and business is sometimes flimsy, so projects are forced to signal confidence through early distributions.

Great product, bad investment. Kyle Reidhead explains the framework that keeps him out of Lighter despite his analysts being bullish: "Milk Road Pro analysts were quite bullish on Lighter, growing, doing well. The problem: FDV is so much higher than the market cap. A lot of dilution to come." "We've seen how you get burned on that so many times. Great product, not necessarily a great asset today. Not super interesting from a token perspective. "That's why I haven't bought anything outside of HYPE."

The Ethereum Bull Thesis in 2026 (Why Now) with @Sharplink CEO @joechalom Timestamps 00:00 ETH Is Not Dead 01:16 Second Largest ETH Holder 02:33 Ethereum Wins The Scoreboard 04:20 Step Function Moment Coming 04:45 The Jeff Bezos Analogy 06:42 EFF Not The Marketing Arm 10:04 Private Sector Must Step Up 12:39 Warren Buffett Capitulation Thesis 13:22 BlackRock Doubled Down At FTX 15:44 WTI Crude Predicts Bitcoin 16:49 Best Entry Point Right Now 22:01 160M Agent Payments Q1 24:50 Institutions Need Finality Not Speed 25:02 BlackRock Tokenizing $8B Fund 30:32 Fidelity Now Largest Investor 33:19 First DeFi In Public Company 35:41 Retail Capitulation Best Entry

Robbie asks Venice Co-founder Teana Baker-Taylor why privacy matters for open source AI models: "The other thing that I think worries me a little bit with the non open source models that are continually evolving, and you don't know what state that is evolving, the responses that you get, we've all had the response were like, it's just flat out. I'm not gonna answer that question for you, which is a bit weird, right? You're like, why?"

Happy Friday. It's MegaETH App Day. Trading apps, gamified perps, onchain TCGs, FX markets, redistribution markets, 1000x leverage. Real-time consumer apps are finally live onchain. Special Guest Co-Host @hotpot_dao of @MegaEth 12:45p EST @pons_eth - @xeetdotai 1:05p EST @caseycraig - @euphoria_fi 1:25p EST @0xlarpist - @worldmarketsinc 1:45p EST @0xflux_ - @userocket_app 2:05p EST @andy8052 - @mnstr 2:25p EST @degentellect - @brix_money 2:45p EST @henrytouma - @hitdotone See you on the show.

Live at 12:30PM ET today. Mega App Day on The Rollup. Following the much anticipated MEGA launch, we welcome 7 of the top apps on @MegaEth and a Special Guest Co-host @hotpot_dao See you on the show!