The Privacy Renaissance ft. NEAR’s Illia Polosukhin

Episode 13 of The Starting Block was broadcasted live with NEAR Protocol Co-Founder Illia Polosukhin and The Block's Head of Multimedia, Gareth Jenkinson.



NEAR Protocol Co-Founder Illia Poloshukhin joins Gareth Jenkinson on The Starting Block to discuss the mainnet launch of quantum resistance and dynamic resharding on NEAR, the case for confidential transactions and privacy as a mass-adoption enabler, and why decentralized AI infrastructure is critical as centralized models face government overreach and agentic security threats.

OUTLINE
01:47 - Show Intro & Headlines
02:58 - Strategy & Saylor News
04:38 - Allbridge Hack & Upbit Probe
05:53 - Polymarket Ban & Robinhood Bull Case
07:10 - Vitalik's Privacy Demo
08:28 - NEAR's Origin & Vision
17:57 - Quantum Resistance Launch
20:50 - Confidential Intents & Privacy
25:29 - X402 & Agent Payments
30:07 - Decentralized AI & Governance
37:28 - IronClaw & Agentic Security
48:20 - DeFi Exploits & Formal Verification

Guest links:
Illia Poloshukhin - https://x.com/ilblackdragon
NEAR Protocol - https://x.com/NEARProtocol

Host links:
Gareth Jenkinson - https://x.com/gazza_jenks
The Block - https://x.com/TheBlockCo
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