NEAR Co-Founder Proposes Sovereign Fund for Protocol Sustainability

NEAR Protocol, founded in 2018 by Illia Polosukhin and Alexander Skidanov, launched its mainnet in 2020 as a proof-of-stake layer-1 blockchain. Its Swiss-based nonprofit, the NEAR Foundation, was initially allocated a 100 million-NEAR endowment to support the ecosystem. The idea matters because token-funded networks often rely on volatile treasuries and recurring sales, leaving developer grants and public infrastructure exposed to market cycles.

As of Aug. 4, 2026, Polosukhin had proposed a separate “protocol sovereign fund” designed to preserve capital, invest across a diversified portfolio and finance the NEAR ecosystem from long-term returns. He cited approaches used by Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global, Singapore’s GIC and leading university endowments. The plan remains conceptual: no target fund size, source of seed capital, spending rate, governance structure or launch date was disclosed.