NEAR and Solana: when ecosystem collaboration surpasses blockchain rivalry

The availability of NEAR on Solana represents a significant moment for the crypto industry. Thanks to the NEAR Intents infrastructure and Helius Labs’ Orb Markets platform, the NEAR token is now natively tradable on the Solana network, marking December 18, 2025, as a key date for this cross-chain integration.

The technical integration: NEAR Intents and Orb Markets

NEAR Intents is positioned as a cross-chain protocol that showed considerable growth in volume and revenue during 2025. Orb Markets, the innovative Solana explorer developed by Helius Labs, provides the necessary infrastructure for this integration. The wrapped NEAR token is available at address 3ZLekZYq2qkZiSpnSvabjit34tUkjSwD1JFuW9as9wBG, with a quote of $1.54 according to updated data.

Mert, founder and CEO of Helius Labs, emphasized how this availability completes a previous desire of his. Two days before the announcement, he expressed interest in purchasing NEAR after praising the project’s development team, but the lack of liquidity on Solana had made it impossible. With this integration, the ability for a single Solana wallet to hold multiple assets—ZEC, NEAR, SOL, and other tokens—using the same private key, represents a step toward abstracting blockchain from the end-user experience.

The fundamental recognition of technical talent

The catalyst for this collaboration stems from the public acknowledgment of NEAR’s technical value. On December 16, Mert stated that NEAR is one of the most underrated teams in the crypto sector, ranking among the top 2-3 for technical talent. He drew a direct parallel between Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of NEAR, and Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder of Solana, highlighting how both lead teams with exceptional technical capabilities and tangible results.

Mert’s position garnered support from other prominent figures in the Solana ecosystem. Austin Federa, co-founder of Double Zero and former Strategy lead at Solana, emphasized how NEAR has constantly reinvented its product with a discipline rare in the crypto landscape. He particularly highlighted interest in NEAR Intents and the company’s work in artificial intelligence, describing it as “the only AI x Crypto thing I eagerly await.”

On December 17, Alex Svanevik, CEO of NansenAI, announced that he had purchased NEAR, observing the project’s dynamism within the sector.

“Attention Is All You Need”: a symbolic recognition

The most symbolic aspect of the convergence between Solana and NEAR emerges from the official Solana account’s post on December 17. The image shows Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, touching Illia’s arm during a panel, accompanied by the caption “Attention is All You Need.” This phrase is no coincidence: Illia is co-author of the revolutionary 2017 paper “Attention is All You Need” by Google, which introduced the transformer architecture—the fundamental technology behind ChatGPT and the entire modern AI revolution.

Illia’s response was significant. He shared an old photo of himself listening to Yakovenko explaining concepts in front of a blackboard, suggesting a long-standing mutual respect between the two founders and their respective projects.

Toward an ecosystem collaboration paradigm

These collective events mark the opening of a new chapter in the blockchain landscape. Solana and NEAR move beyond the traditional narrative of competitive rivalry that has historically characterized the crypto sector. The emergence of mutually beneficial integrations suggests an evolution toward a model where chains and infrastructures become abstracted from the end-user perspective.

In this new paradigm, users access assets and ecosystems seamlessly through their chosen wallets, regardless of the underlying blockchain. The integration of NEAR on Solana is not just a technical event but a manifestation of industry maturation toward constructive collaboration and meaningful interoperability.