BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes and NEAR Protocol co-founder Illia Polosukhin stated that the cryptocurrency market is shifting towards fundamentals, naming HYPE, NEAR, and ZEC as key beneficiary assets. Polosukhin appeared on the YouTube channel The Rollup and said, "Block space has already become a commodity where supply significantly exceeds demand. The reason NEAR focuses on chain abstraction and the cross-chain transaction system NEAR Intents is to connect all chains, assets, and users to make block space interchangeable. The logic of buying in anticipation of offloading to retail investors, as in the past, is disappearing. Now, whether an asset generates actual profit or can gain new functionalities through staking has become the investment criterion," mentioning the potential of HYPE (fee discount, market accessibility), ZEC (privacy), and NEAR (cross-chain, computational features). Hayes stated at the same event, "In an era where AI, big tech, and governments can track everything, cryptographic financial privacy will become essential," and revealed ZEC to be his second-largest holding.
