🚀 NEW EPISODE 🚀 Scaling the Agentic Internet @tw_tter chats with @bowenwang18, Head of Protocol @ Near One, about blockchain scaling, AI, and how @NEARProtocol sets the ground for AI-native apps & the agentic economy. ‘Attention Is All You Need’, co-wrote by Illia Polosukhin in 2017, laid the foundation for arguably one of the most consequential tech breakthroughs in our recent history. 1 year later, Illia founded Near AI, which later became @NEARProtocol. They were visionaries ahead of their time and, although AI took several more years before becoming a viable product, the experience of scaling databases would later prove valuable and applicable in blockchain world. As a result, @NEARProtocol is one of the first blockchains to implement execution layer sharding, asynchronous execution and stateless validation, bringing the finality time down to 1.2 seconds, with a block time of 0.6 seconds. Don't forget to RT & follow @epicenterbtc! Topics discussed in this episode: 0:00 - Introduction 3:30 - Bowen’s background 4:47 - Near’s pivot from AI to blockchains 8:26 - The role of Near One 9:13 - Near’s tech stack upgrades 13:39 - Optimizing network architecture 17:08 - Stateless validation & block propagation 21:10 - Sharding & asynchronous execution 29:12 - Message passing between shards & shard ‘equality’ 35:51 - Challenges of implementing stateless validation 41:05 - Applications benefiting from Near’s finality speed 44:18 - Intent-based infrastructure 47:10 - AI use cases on Near 52:27 - Expanding Near’s ecosystem 54:43 - Development challenges 57:55 - Near’s vision and goals