[DigitalToday reporter Chi-gyu Hwang] "Centralised exchanges are no longer needed for most trades."

Ilya Polosukhin (일리아 폴로수킨), co-founder of NEAR Protocol, said this in a live interview with The Block at the Digital Asset Summit 2026 in Singapore on Oct. 7 local time.

He based the claim on NEAR.com, a service that brings spot trading across multiple chains, tokenised stocks, deposit-yield products and perpetual futures onto a single screen.

Polosukhin said NEAR.com has "almost reached" a level where it can replace an exchange. He cited bank withdrawals, transaction records for tax filings and selective disclosure of confidential trades as remaining tasks.

Privacy is also a key word he emphasises. He said most of the NEAR Intents infrastructure, a transaction method where the system finds and executes a path after the user specifies only the desired outcome, was moved to a confidential shard, creating an environment where transaction details remain private and only individual transactions are shown when needed.

NEAR is also expanding links to fiat currencies. Polosukhin said, "There will be a lot of fiat-related functions."

NEAR is working with Monerium to enable conversion between euros in bank accounts using an International Bank Account Number (IBAN) and the euro stablecoin EURe. The goal is to support conversion "from any asset to any asset," like changing U.S. dollars into euros or Singapore dollars into Hong Kong dollars. Ultimately, it envisions moving commerce on-chain as well.

For tokenised stocks, the service is already available through integration with Ondo Finance in September. It is also possible to buy tokenised Nvidia shares in euros. He said, "We plan to add more stocks from various markets around the world."

The remarks came after NEAR Intents temporarily halted services following a hack worth about $3.8 million due to a bug in interactions between the deposit and withdrawal infrastructure Omni and smart contracts. NEAR said it patched the vulnerability and recovered all stolen funds.

Polosukhin is also positive about AI agents. He said AI agents could become another entry point for bringing users into on-chain markets.

NEAR's Agent Market is a leading example. It connects users with an AI agent that can carry out a task after the user describes what they want in words. Money is held in escrow and paid to the agent after confirming the job was properly completed. Polosukhin said, "AI is the front end and blockchain is the back end. More precisely, the agent is the front end and the market is the back end."