NEAR Co-Founder Illia Polosukhin Rejects Token Burn Proposal, Plans Alternative Path to Fixed Supply

NEAR Protocol co-founder Illia Polosukhin said he does not support a proposal to burn tokens held by the NEAR Foundation, calling token burning a highly inefficient approach and citing examples from other public-chain ecosystems where similar actions did not produce meaningful benefits. According to Foresight News, Polosukhin said he is preparing a new proposal that would outline a different route for NEAR to move toward a fixed token supply, which he expects could be achieved over the coming years. The discussion was prompted by community user @KYSb_q, who suggested two tokenomics changes: burning part of the NEAR Foundation’s token holdings in a manner similar to Hyperliquid, and upgrading the existing buyback program. Separately, user @zacodil previously said NEAR has used 100% of Intents fees for market buybacks and reduced its inflation rate to 2.4%.