Key Notes
- The integration enables NEAR trading on Solana at $1.52, powered by cross-chain protocol NEAR Intents and Helius Labs’ Orb Markets.
- Collaboration gained momentum after industry figures praised NEAR’s technical team, comparing co-founder Illia Polosukhin to Solana’s Anatoly Yakovenko.
- Both protocols demonstrate shift from competitive to collaborative approach, allowing users to access multiple chain assets natively in single wallets.
The NEAR token is now available for trading on Solana, powered by NEAR Intents and Orb Markets. This integration comes one day after Solanaโs โAttention is All You Needโ post that went viral, featuring Jensen Huang and Illia Polosukhin.
On December 18, Solanaโs official account on X announced NEAR going live on its network. NEAR Protocolโs official account quoted the announcement, mentioning this integration is powered by NEAR Intents and Orb Markets. NEAR Intents is a cross-chain protocol that achieved significant volume and revenue growth in 2025, while Orb Markets is an innovative Solana explorer built by Helius Labs.
Powered by NEAR Intents ร @Orb_Markets https://t.co/PFI5x6trGB pic.twitter.com/7REE0gd6sx
โ NEAR Protocol (@NEARProtocol) December 18, 2025
Mert, founder and CEO of Helius Labs, celebrated the integration, mentioning he tried to buy NEAR โtwo days agoโ after a post where he praised NEARโs development team, but it was not available on Solana at that time. โA million markets in your pockets,โ he described Solana, followed by a new post showing his Solana wallet with ZEC, NEAR, SOL, and McDonaldโs xStock, saying, โcrazy you can hold all this on a single Solana private key.โ
NEAR on Solana can be visualized on Orbs via the wrapped token address 3ZLekZYq2qkZiSpnSvabjit34tUkjSwD1JFuW9as9wBG, currently trading at $1.52, according to Orbs.
NEAR token address visualization, as of December 18, 2025 | Source: Orbs Market
Solana and NEAR Collaboration: Attention Is All You Need
Everything started gaining traction on December 16, when Mert posted that โNEAR is a top 2-3 underrated team in crypto,โ comparing its technical talent to Solana, in particular tracing a parallel between Illia Polosukhin, NEAR co-founder, and Anatoly Yakovenko, Solana co-founder.
NEAR seems to me a top 2-3 underrated team in crypto
it’s the only technical team as talented as Solana with the results to show for it, v smart devs
it is also still founder-led with Illia (the guy who helped invent LLMs)
if their GTM gets fixed, no reason why it’s not top 10
โ mert | helius.dev (@0xMert_) December 16, 2025
Other prominent figures connected to Solana joined Mert. For example, Double Zeroโs co-founder and former Strategy lead at Solana, Austin Federa, praised both NEAR Intents and NEARโs AI products, also bringing Illiaโs name to the table.
Near has consistently reinvented their product in source of PMF with a discipline not often found in crypto.
Intents are cool. Itโs made possible by an awesome mpc network under the hood.
Their AI work is the only AI x Crypto thing Iโm looking forwards to. Nice jobโฆ https://t.co/MMZ6RCneJV
โ Austin Federa | ๐บ๐ธ (@Austin_Federa) December 16, 2025
On December 17, Alex Svanevik, CEO of NansenAI, said he โjust bought some NEAR,โ adding that he โcanโt take missing out on another ZEC,โ in reference to Mertโs role in pushing Zcashโs privacy and ZEC price through continuous support and active posting on X, as Coinspeaker reported before its remarkable rally.
just bought some near
I canโt take missing out on another zec https://t.co/48ixDFJVq7
โ Alex Svanevik ๐ง (@ASvanevik) December 17, 2025
Then, Solanaโs official account posted a photo of Jensen Huang, Nvidiaโs CEO, touching Illiaโs arm in a conference panel, with the caption โAttention is All You Need.โ Illia is the co-author of Attention is All You Need, the revolutionary 2017 Google paper that introduced the transformer architecture, the core tech behind the AI boomโcalled the โTโ in โChatGPT.โ
This post got a response from Polosukhin, sharing an old picture of him listening to Yakovenkoโs explanation in front of a whiteboard, suggesting the two founders and projects have maintained a good relationship for years.
You have my attention pic.twitter.com/ugysFyynAi
โ Illia (root.near) (๐บ๐ฆ, โ) (@ilblackdragon) December 17, 2025
As things develop, Solana and NEAR break a paradigm of hostile competition in crypto, opening the doors for an era of collaboration in endeavors that are mutually beneficial, with the notion of the chains and infrastructures abstracted to the end user, who can access both assets and ecosystems natively in their wallets of choice.
Disclaimer: Coinspeaker is committed to providing unbiased and transparent reporting. This article aims to deliver accurate and timely information but should not be taken as financial or investment advice. Since market conditions can change rapidly, we encourage you to verify information on your own and consult with a professional before making any decisions based on this content.
Vini Barbosa has covered the crypto industry professionally since 2020, summing up to over 10,000 hours of research, writing, and editing related content for media outlets and key industry players. Vini is an active commentator and a heavy user of the technology, truly believing in its revolutionary potential. Topics of interest include blockchain, open-source software, decentralized finance, and real-world utility.
