Uneasy Money: Illia Polosukhin on Why Onchain Commerce Needs Confidentiality

Unchained

Laura Shin

News, Business News, Tech News

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 29 May 2026

⏱️ 83 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Illia Polosukhin, founder of NEAR and co-author of 'Attention Is All You Need,' on why confidentiality will let crypto become daily commerce — plus, some Near lore. ======================================================== Thank you to our sponsors! ⁠⁠Multichain Advisors⁠⁠: Get help navigating TGEs, go‑to‑market, BD and partnerships, capital markets advisory, PR, media placements, KOL activations and more at ⁠⁠multichainadv.com⁠⁠. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Coinbase One⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: Get 20% off the first year of your Coinbase One annual plan at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠coinbase.com/unchained⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. ======================================================== Before co-founding NEAR Protocol, Illia Polosukhin was on the eight-person Google Brain team that wrote the transformer paper — the architecture behind every large language model running today. He never mentioned it. When Kain Warwick found out two weeks ago, via a crypto AI chatbot, his reaction was: you have to be kidding me. That backstory sets the tone for a conversation that moves from how transformers actually came together, to why confidentiality is what unlocks on-chain commerce for real businesses, and what NEAR is doing to keep criminals off its network without becoming a surveillance layer. The hosts also get into the Ethereum Foundation's identity crisis, why Illia thinks decentralization is a tool and not a goal, and what the economy looks like when AI handles execution and blockchain handles coordination. Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Kain Warwick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Founder of Infinex and Synthetix ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Taylor Monahan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Security Expert ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Luca Netz⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, CEO of Pudgy Penguins Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Illia Polosukhin — Co-Founder, NEAR Protocol - https://x.com/ilblackdragon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	My thesis in general, coincidentiality is a key unlock for actually crypto becoming truly day-to-day use.
0:08.5	You cannot imagine a business doing commerce on chain where everybody can just go into Block Explorer and see how much revenue they're getting, how much they're paying their suppliers, what does the salaries are.
0:20.8	This is why most of the crypto still does, you know, fiat payroll because nobody
0:26.0	wants to show how much like payments of salaries, et cetera, going.
0:31.9	Hey, everyone. I'm Kang Warwick. Welcome to uneasy money because what happens on chain never
0:36.0	stays on chain. Before we begin, here is a word from the sponsors that make our show possible.
0:42.3	Multi-Chain Advisors is an emerging technology growth firm that has helped create 50 plus billion dollars in enterprise value for 80 plus clients over the past four years.
0:53.3	They're the partner to help navigate markets.
0:56.7	Build real traction today at multi-chain ADV.com.
1:03.0	Hey everyone.
1:04.2	I'm here with my co-host, Taylor Monahan, security expert and Luca.
1:07.5	And that's the CEO of Pudgy Penguins.
1:09.6	And today we have a very special guest,
1:11.7	Ilya, the co-founder of Near Protocol.
1:14.9	And the co-author, I'm glad this is finally in this line.
1:18.2	The co-author of attention is all you need,
1:20.6	the transformer paper that started the model era of LLMs.
1:25.3	So, Ilya, you and I have known each other for a long time, right? And I did not know
1:31.1	until two weeks ago that you were on this paper. Like, I've read the paper. I never read the
1:36.4	authors. Like, I was just like, yeah, whatever. But like, you know, and I was kind of downed. I was
1:42.9	talking to a clanker. And I was talking about some near stuff, and I was, like, doing some research, and the clanker was like, oh, Ilya is, like, on that paper. And I was like, no, he's not. Like, what are you hallucinating? And the glenker was like, you definitely is. And I was like, and then I looked at the paper and I was like, holy shit. And I was like,
2:01.6	how is it that I've known you for five years and you haven't brought this up 250 times?
	...

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