On October 8, 2026, SVRN announced that FastNEAR is now a wholly owned subsidiary. FastNEAR provides RPC, archival-data and developer infrastructure for the NEAR ecosystem, handling more than 3.5 billion requests per month and storing over 100 TB of data. FastNEAR co-founders Evgeny Kuzyakov and Mike Purvis have joined SVRN. Deal terms remain private.
The acquisition builds on SVRN’s existing NEAR treasury strategy. In August, SVRN disclosed it held 55.5 million NEAR and was pursuing a long-term goal of accumulating 10% of the token supply. SVRN stakes NEAR, participates in governance, and helped develop an incentive programme for multi-party computation node operators. FastNEAR adds an application-facing service layer used by wallets, developers and applications, though NEAR consensus and protocol rules remain independent of FastNEAR.
In a separate October 7 memo, Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan argued that NEAR’s investment case no longer depends solely on its ambition to serve autonomous AI agents. Hougan described NEAR as an operating blockchain business with measurable activity. NEAR Intents has surpassed $30 billion in cumulative volume and is on pace to generate roughly $45 million in fees this year, with a share of fees directed into open-market buybacks. Hougan said investors can justify a position based on existing cross-chain business alone, while the AI thesis is incremental optionality.
Sovereign CEO Sal Ternullo added that NEAR is entering a phase where usage more directly supports token value. He noted the network previously cut annual inflation from 5% to 2.5%, and a governance proposal aims to reduce issuance further from 2.5% to 1.6% over two years. NEAR rose about 198% in the third quarter, compared with gains of 43% for bitcoin and 71% for ether. Bitwise has also launched a spot NEAR exchange-traded product, ticker NRR, on NYSE Arca.
SVRN’s release did not disclose FastNEAR’s purchase price, revenue, margins or customer concentration. The deal increases SVRN’s dependence on NEAR, and the next disclosures will show whether FastNEAR becomes a durable operating business or mainly extends the company’s existing NEAR bet.
