NEAR Foundation and IQ AI are combining deep technical integration with aligned incentives to expand the ecosystem for tokenized AI agents, enabling agents to operate autonomously across multiple chains.
IQ AI develops infrastructure for tokenized AI agents capable of operating in digital and physical environments. Central among that infrastructure is IQ AI’s Agent Tokenization Platform (ATP), which enables developers to create AI agents capable of autonomously managing assets, executing financial strategies, and interacting with decentralized economies—with each agent getting its own tradable token to facilitate community governance and collaboration.
IQ AI has now integrated NEAR Intents into its Agent Development Kit, the developer toolkit used to build and deploy the intelligent agents for ATP. Within its ADK, IQ AI has created multiple specialized Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers for direct access to NEAR Intents and the NEAR blockchain, using a secure, standardized, two-way interface.
With NEAR Intents and the NEAR blockchain integrated directly into IQ AI’s Agent Development Kit, tokenized agents can autonomously trade, stake, and interact across chains without manual or centralized coordination. And in the coming weeks, IQ AI will also integrate NEAR Shade Agents, enabling more advanced autonomous smart contract execution and reinforcing NEAR’s Chain Abstraction roadmap.
“The IQ AI team shares NEAR’s mission to make AI agents economic actors both in DeFi and real-world commerce,” said Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of NEAR Protocol. “We’re excited to work with them across the spectrum of NEAR tech—from confidential, verifiable NEAR AI to Shade Agents and NEAR Intents—and build out the future of crypto x AI.”
“This collaboration unlocks a powerful new layer of autonomy for AI agents," said Navin Vethanayagam, co-founder of IQ AI. "By working closely with the NEAR Foundation on both technical integration and ecosystem alignment, agents built on IQ AI can operate seamlessly across chains and environments. Whether coordinating complex transactions or interacting in the physical world through robotics, this moves us closer to an intelligent, decentralized agent economy.”
BrainDAO, the DAO governing IQ AI, has acquired NEAR tokens to support staking and integrations. NEAR Foundation has acquired IQ and FRAX to participate in the tokenized AI economy and support NEAR Intents liquidity—deepening alignment between the two ecosystems.
The collaboration extends to liquidity infrastructure, by supporting NEAR token pairs for agents launching on Fraxtal, the modular blockchain underlying ATP, with Fraxswap providing the underlying liquidity infrastructure for these pairs.
Native support for NEAR and FRAX token pairs enables agents to launch and sustain liquid token economies directly. These tokens will also power liquid cross-chain markets on NEAR Intents, while IQ and FRAX staking enables participation in Frax ecosystem governance. Additional liquidity pairs are planned for rollout throughout 2025.
For more on the partnership's capabilities, keep an eye on upcoming NEAR Town Hall events, where IQ AI will be conducting live demonstrations of AI agents executing cross-chain transactions and humanoid robots engaging in on-chain financial activities through the integrated platform.
