OceanPal Bets $120M on NEAR and AI with SovereignAI Launch

By partnering with the NEAR Foundation, the goal of the initiative is to acquire up to 10% of NEAR’s token supply and advance the concept of “universal AI sovereignty.” The move also brings new leadership, including former State Street executive Sal Ternullo as co-CEO and Illia Polosukhin of NEAR joining the advisory ￰0￱ Launches SovereignAI Nasdaq-listed OceanPal ￰1￱ $120 million through a private investment in public equity (PIPE) deal to launch a new subsidiary called SovereignAI, which goal is to commercialize the NEAR Protocol and develop artificial intelligence ￰2￱ company revealed on Tuesday that SovereignAI will also adopt a crypto treasury strategy, with plans to acquire up to 10% of the total NEAR token ￰3￱ initiative is being developed in partnership with the NEAR Foundation and is a major move toward integrating blockchain and artificial intelligence technologies under the concept of “universal AI sovereignty.” Announcement from OceanPal NEAR is a layer-1 blockchain that supports decentralized AI applications by enabling AI agents to interact, manage assets, and operate autonomously across different ￰4￱ collaboration positions OceanPal as a public market vehicle for exposure to NEAR’s native token while also aligning both organizations around the shared goal of advancing open, interoperable AI ￰5￱ the announcement, OceanPal introduced key leadership changes to steer the new ￰6￱ State Street executive Sal Ternullo was appointed co-CEO, while David Schwed, who previously held senior roles at BNY Mellon, Galaxy, and Robinhood, was named chief operating ￰7￱ Foundation co-founder and CEO Illia Polosukhin will join the SovereignAI advisory board, alongside other people from the industry like Richard Muirhead of Fabric Ventures and OpenAI researcher Lukasz ￰8￱ launch of SovereignAI comes at a time when the crypto and AI sectors are increasingly ￰9￱ agents are now leveraging blockchain technology to securely manage assets, verify on-chain actions, and function as self-governing economic participants.

Coinbase’s head of institutional strategy, John D’Agostino, recently said that cryptocurrency is essential for enabling AI agents to operate efficiently in financial ￰10￱ this trend, Cloudflare announced plans to launch its own stablecoin, NET Dollar, to facilitate instant AI-triggered transactions, while Coinbase’s AI-ready payments protocol saw its transaction volume soar over 10,000% in the past month. Overall, it is becoming clear that there is a growing convergence between AI and blockchain as companies race to define the future of autonomous digital economies.